FANTASTIC PLANET v2.0 (14 page)

'Come, come,
move
forward!'

All this was
taking place amongst shrieks, conversations, questions, orders and children
whining. Everyone remonstrated somehow, embittered by the march's weariness.
But all could feel their heart beating in unison with the great mass. All were
suppressing a smile in the knowledge they were supported by the others'
reassuring presence.

Intoxicated
by the tanks' martial din, the great city and the herd's stamping, the Oms
could feel a hardy plant germinating in their hearts, its intimate roots
deliciously growing in their guts: a feeling of collective happiness and
strength making them forget their bruises, their thirst and the dust.

The imperious
rumbling of machines drowned the tremendous murmur. Led by a beam of light a
tank was cutting a path through the throng as a loudspeaker proclaimed loudly:

'Make way!
Make way for the Aedile's tank!'

All felt the
nobility of those words and their power warmed everyone's hearts. Each secretly
scoffed at the Traags and their spheres. The order was repeated by

thousands
of mouths and turned into cheers.

'Make way
for the Aedile! Make way for the Aedile's tank! Long live the Aedile! Hapiness
onto the Aedile! Happiness! Make way for the tank
!...
'

The heavy
vehicle's noise shook the vaults, and its headlights lit up sparkling walls of
crystals. They realised they'd been walking underground for a while. Tricked by
the night the Oms had not seen the caves they were entering.

The voices
were not getting lost in the plateau's breeze. They were bouncing off the
walls, twirling back in a strange acoustic dance. Echoes were created by
laughing like children:

'Ho!'

"Ho!
Ho! Ho, ho, o, o..."

'Ha!'

"Ha!
Ha, a, a..."

'Long live
the Aedile!'

"Aedile!
Aedile, dile, ile..."

'Ho! Ha!
Aedile, dile, o, a, Ha! Dile, o...'

It turned into a racket not unlike a funfair and louder than the hubbub of
official exhortations'.

A sudden
fearsome roar put an end to the game. Something massive was rolling down the
rock face, shattering it into thousands of crystalline projectiles and plunging
heavily into a bottomless lake.

The Oms fell
into an anxious silence. A guide's voice could be heard.

'... Making
noise is dangerous! Some rocks are holding by a thread and can come off
suddenly!'

The tanks
had all disappeared. They must have turned off on tracks set aside for quick
journeys. Their metallic din had got lost in the ground's entrails.

Lots of
"Shush" were spreading through the darkness. Everyone advanced
silently as the caves' soul began to sing.

It sounded
like an "Aaaa"...
A fantastic "Aaaa",
magnificent yet discreet and unsettling, whispered eternally like the breath
from an invisible abyss.
As they travelled on, it turned into a muffled
and deep "Oooo". The blinded Oms filled the darkness with
hallucinations. Along the way they could make out funnels gaping like mouths,
with lips made of rocks distended in a grimace.

'Why isn't
there any light?' someone dared to ask.

A guide
replied:

'Our orders
are to save all light sources until the electrification project is finished.
Don't worry and walk in line holding hands. The road is safe here, and we'll
hand out torches further down.'

Muffled
protests burst out here and there.

'As if holding hands was easy!'

i
need two hands to carry my load!'

The guide's
voice resumed:

'You'll
shortly put down your loads. Be patient.'

They went on
through the darkness. Their instinct told them they were walking across a
natural bridge above an abyss and from time to time they could hear the sound
of waterfalls and torrents. Further on, they could feel they were crossing huge
rooms where water drops were playing little tunes over and over as they dropped
onto flat stones or basins of different shapes and sizes...

They finally
saw some lights. Flames were twisting and turning, giving off the smell of
resin and lighting up rocky shapes and tormented faults.

They came
across a small group of Oms piling up loads in a crevice.

'Put your
loads down!' said a guide passing by. 'Take this,
it's
lighter!'

He was
offering them torches. Eager hands stretched out.

'Not all of
you!' protested the guide.
'One torch for twenty Oms.'

In the
flames' dancing lights they realised they were only a few hundreds. It was
explained to them that similar groups had taken different paths to reach the
city.

'There are
several passages in order to prevent jams and accidents. Enough questions!
Let's continue this way.'

It was a
vast forest. Stalagmites streaked with bright colours from the torches'
reflection were rising towards the vaults hidden in the dark. Like finely
sculpted tree trunks, they looked like elegant pillars glittering endlessly.

'Hold your
torches high', said the guide. 'And don't lower your heads. We're heading waist
high through a pond of noxious gas. 'Take heart! In an hour you'll see the city
with its lights and houses...'

'... and its
beds!' someone shouted.

Exhausted,
the Oms found the strength to laugh.

The Aedile's tank was tearing
along a corridor set aside for leaders. It vanished at full speed in a maze of
ravines and arches reaching the city in half an hour.

First
came
avenues levelled by heavy traffic and lined with
electrical lights. Further away huge cirques, their walls bristling with
openings and access ramps; then numerous metal bridges thrown across streams
interspersed with spinning padded wheels.

Masses of
workers were hoisting beams, manoeuvring winches, installing networks of
electric wires, embedding parapets along the precipices, their enthusiasm
increased tenfold in the knowledge they were working towards a common goal.

The tank
slowed down on a steep slope, veered to the right and pulled up in front of a
porch guarded by two sentries.

The Aedile
jumped to the ground, gave a friendly wave to the tank's driver and approached
a guard.

'Happiness
onto you, Aedile', said the Om.

'Announce me
to the Council', said Terr. 'Emergency session'.

He rushed
into the building as the Om was leaning over a telebox.

***

Ten or so
Oms were in session around a table. The Aedile was speaking.

'Whether the
sphere passed by chance or was intentionally looking for us makes no
difference: the Traags know that thousands of Oms inhabit this continent. They
know we have tanks and as it's unthinkable that we swam across the ocean or
sailed with crude boats, they know we're capable of building ships. In time
they'll think quite rightly we can achieve anything, even defeat them. If I was
a Traag First Councillor I'd vote for the immediate and total extermination of
the Oms!'

Char
interrupted:

'At the very
worst we have all night to come up with a defensive plan.'

'What
defensive plan?' said Terr
ironically.
'What have we
got? A few tanks armed with weak ray launchers, a little bit of electrical
current and our bare chests! It seems to me very inadequate against hard ray
rockets.'

'They don't
know the city's exact location.' voiced Vail.

Terr leapt
up:

'No', he
said, 'no, no! Tell that to reassure the crowd but not to me! Not to the
Council! They spotted which way the column was heading. They know we're fond of
the underground and they're familiar with the continent's geology. In other
words, they know where we are!'

'Then I see
only one way', said an officer, 'which is to get back on the sea and try
reaching the other Wild Continent.'

'With only one ship!
Don't talk nonsense!'

'Scatter
temporarily and set up a city elsewhere', suggested Char.

A painful
silence set in. Asking such an effort from the Oms seemed impossible. In any
case, it would take two weeks to achieve.

'Establish
several small colonies as we dismantle the city. And when it's attacked,
sacrifice it and its inhabitants for our race's survival.'

'No', said
Terr, 'we'll live or die all together. We've left enough companions behind with
the Traags. Not again. Besides our lives would be constantly under threat as
the Traags would go through the continent with a fine-tooth comb.'

'So?'

Terr got up
and paced up and down, occasionally kicking the walls. He suddenly tapped his
forehead.

'A
telebarrier!' he bellowed out.

Following a
moment of surprise, Vail banged his fist on the table.

'You're
right!'

'Where are
the pieces from the telebarrier we recovered from the old port?'

A young Om
got up.

'I'll go and
get them', he said.

He was back
in a few minutes and placed a few heavy registers on the table. The Aedile
opened them nervously.

'Let's
see... Sugar, tallow, tachometers... Sieves...'

He raised
his head:

'Sieves?
Whose idea was it to load up the ship with such
things?

'Aedile', an
officer protested, 'they're not sieves,
they're
ray
filters!'

Terr looked
further down.

'Drills...
telebarrier
!There
are one hundred and fifty pieces,
fifty of which got lost with vessel 3. The other hundred are apportioned as
follow: fifty in the city, room 7
reserve
B, and fifty
in the ship at the landing base, hold 2.'

He unfolded
a map of the Wild Continent and said:

it
shows how wealthy the Traags are; no half measures. One hundred and fifty
pieces to surround a small port! There's enough to protect a whole continent!'

'We could
manufacture a transmitter!' said Char enthusiastically.

'What about
the current?'

'The
electrical plan's maximum power is 50,000 units! By replacing during an attack
all the lights and equipment by torches or basic fires and devote all the
current to the transmitter...'

'We'd have
50,000 units!' Terr interrupted, it's not enough... at first glance, that is.'

He pushed a
map in front of an engineer.

'We're six
hundred stadia from the nearest coastline, and three thousand from the
furthest. What do you reckon?'

The engineer
made some quick calculations.

'We'd need
150,000 units to make a decent telebarrier.'

'Can we get
it by speeding up the electrification plan?'

'No, Aedile,
not for months. We just don't have enough equipment.'

Vail put his
hand on Terr's shoulder, his eyes glittering.

'By adding
to it the batteries from the tanks and all the teleboxes... and the ones from
the ship, I almost forgot!'

Terr clapped
his hands and spoke into a telebox.

'Statistics department?
This is the Aedile speaking.
Can you immediately calculate the electricity available to us
...
No, in total! By adding the batteries from the teleboxes, the tanks, the ship,
the heaters, everything,
you
understand? When will you
have an answer?'

***

The answer
arrived fifteen minutes later: 120,000 units. 'It's a shame', said Terr. 'We're
only 30,000 units short.'

He knitted
his brow. Where could the extra

power
be found? He was dreaming of some kind of
turbine, of current, of giant sparks. An image struck him.

'The
bossks!' he said.

Nobody
appeared to understand. He had to remind them of the incident in the jungle and
spoke about muscular electricity. The idea was both inspired and baroque.

Sav did not
sit at the Council. His shining light was needed. He was beckoned by telebox
and Terr explained the problem they were facing and his hopes. But the
naturalist wagged his head.

'No', he
said. 'You got carried away by your imagination. Just think of the number of
bossks your plan would require. We'd have to find and kill them, as I doubt
we'd be able to explain to them our problem for them to come willingly...'