FANTASTIC PLANET v2.0 (9 page)

He contacted
someone else and said:

'Master
Singh should arrive at the intercontinental spherodrome in a few minutes. Do
what you can to bring him to me as soon as possible.'

The first
fiximaged prints fell into the drawer reserved for urgent mail. The Councillor
grabbed them and spread them out on his desk. He examined the blown up shots of
the abandoned city. He chuckled. Small clues revealed a high concentration of
Oms in the ruins. He highlighted in red an old gutter full of bare footprints
and three small silhouettes standing out against the sunlight in an old wall's
crack. He also noticed the odd presence of a stack of new tins badly concealed
behind a curtain of grass.

Master
Singh's arrival was announced. They did away with hollow courtesy. The
Councillor showed the pictures to the old scientist. He glanced at them and
said:

'That's
hardly interesting. We already know there are Oms in this city. Did you just
work at the surface?'

'Not only,
Master', said the Councillor.

He leant
over the box and pulled out more prints.

'We also
have transfiximages'.

'What
depth?'

'Look, it is
written on the corner: 50 millistadia.'

Master Singh
looked satisfied. He bent his wrinkled head over the desk and placed his wiry
finger at the top of one of the images.

'Look here,'
he simply said.

The print
was clear. The rays had gone through the first layers without setting them onto
the film. One could see inside the ruins nearest to the camera.

'Oms!' said
the Councillor.

'Of course
Oms!' echoed the old man. 'What I am interested in is this! Those black shapes
around which the Oms are grouped in threes.'

'They
are...'

'Pocket
weapons, ray guns! These Oms are armed, my dear First Councillor! Do you
realize! Of course, due to their small size three are needed whereas we just
need to press the trigger with a finger. Look at that, they have modified these
weapons to their advantage. Each ray gun is mounted on a spring carriage. They
soldered levers for each trigger.'

He quickly
pored over other prints, pointing out strategically placed batteries.

'Look here!
And there... here! Three more! Considering their size this amounts to heavy
artillery! Do you realise that at the slightest offensive move your Traags
would have been killed at point-blank range?'

'How frightening!'

The Master
nodded pensively his large head wrinkled by age.

'Let's see
the rest', he said grabbing hold of the prints piling up in the drawer. 'Here,
we have... four centistadia deep... let's see... Oh! There! Look at this, First
Councillor. Corridors, stairwells... What can this be?'

'Lights, I
think.'

'Yes, a
network of lights for this... labyrinth! They are not economising. They must
have numerous batteries... and there?'

He was
scanning through more prints.
Ten centistadia, thirty, forty.
The prints were
more fuzzy
as it got deeper. Each shot
showed the outline of the previous ones.

Yet the two
Traags could make out warehouses teeming with weaponry, supplies and tools;
there were dormitories, nurseries, instruction rooms full of headsets over
which students were leaning in groups of ten.

'This really
is dangerous', said Master Singh. The rest is nothing. These headsets divulge
all our techniques and the science we have perfected over the years.'

'Your last
sentence is reassuring', argued the First Councillor, if it's taken us aeons...'

'No, you
just don't get it', the Master interrupted. 'Remember we've left our ready made
science to be plundered! All they have to do is take what took us years to
build. Look how far they've gone in a few months! Woe to us if we don't
intervene. They will overtake us! They possess fantastic assimilation
faculties. Besides, this only half surprises me. When I found out they were
communicating through telenetworks I came to the conclusion they were capable
of manufacturing teleboxes that could be carried easily. If they can do that,
they can do the rest too... let's see the latest pictures.'

The last
prints were practically indecipherable. Any reasonable interpretation was
blurred by the superimposition of shots.

'I'll get
the laboratory to clarify this', said the First Councillor.

Acting on
his words, he threw the pictures in a drawer and dictated his orders by
telebox.

'When will
they be done?' enquired the Master.

'Not before tomorrow, unfortunately.'

The
scientist sighed and cracked his old parched membranes.

'I took
other measures', said the Councillor. 'I already mentioned them to you.'

'Yes, I
know.
A telebarrier!'

'The city is
almost encircled. If they have motor vehicles or spheres they will not be able
to use them.'

The old man
waved dishearteningly at the fiximages spread out on the table.

'Having seen
all this', he said, 'I wonder if they have not spotted your agents' ploy. They
are capable of unearthing your elements and change the wavelength for their own
use.'

'Come on! My
Traags were discreet.'

'Discreet at our scale.
But the slightest gesture can
become a major blunder in the eyes of an observant small Om. I think more
decisive and brutal measures will have to be considered.'

'Crushing it
all without any warning?'

'Perhaps.
I don't think they can fight us on equal terms.
Not yet. But we have only located one city. What if there are others?'

The
Councillor's red eyes darkened with indignation.

'I should be
very surprised. The rare telemessages we've picked up...'

'The rare
telemessages!' said the Master bitterly. 'This proves you have not picked up
all of them. What if they have a code? Imagine dozens of similar cities
operating secretly on each of the four continents!'

'Nothing
leads us to draw such assumptions. The Councillors on the other continents have
detected nothing more worrying than wandering Oms' uncoordinated activities.
The deomisations...'

'I am
wondering whether deomisations actually contribute to their evolution by giving
them the need for a defensive organisation!'

The First
Councillor raised his arms in the air, stretching out his membranes:

'But it was
yourself, Master, who was the first to advocate this preventive measure to my
colleague in A North!'

'I could
have been mistaken; I am not infallible. I still did not know the extent of the
danger... believe me, the time has come to wonder if the Traags are still
Ygam's master race.'

'You are
looking on the dark side of things', said the Councillor in a shrill voice
which sounded like laughter.

'Oh! Don't
laugh', protested the Master. 'I have been studying the Oms for a long time.
The faculties of this... animal never cease to amaze me... We face a terrible
danger. A Council is being held in a week. I'll have you know I intend to
propose immediate and total deomisation.'

'Don't even
think about it! The public has not been informed of our concern. You will
provoke a general outcry. Many people are very attached to their Oms!'

'Once they
are informed...'

'But no, Master Singh.
There is another reason for
opposing such a plan. If the truth was to be trumpeted everywhere, the
organised Oms would hear about it. They will react and find a way of countering
our offensive, or at least weaken its scope. We must take them by surprise!'

The Master
thought for a while.

'You may be
right', he said finally. 'We could give an epidemic as a pretext and make it
compulsory to vaccinate the Oms against a bogus disease. With this lie we
wouldn't have to kill the Oms, but just destroy some of their cerebral centres
and remove all intelligence. What do you think?'

it
seems clever. I'll have the matter looked into...

Happiness
onto you, Master Singh, you still managed to scare me! As early as tomorrow I
will hold a Continental Select Committee to envisage large-scale policies.'

The Master
stood up.

'Happiness,
First Councillor. Be quick about it, trust me!'

He looked at
his axillary dial.

in
one hour I will be in Torm', he said. 'I will talk to your A
Northcolleague. But it is getting late. Would you be so kind as to inform him
of my
visit.
'

Beneath
a topaz sky darkened by the sunset, a vast sea
tinted like
fresh blood was gently moving back and forth across
the horizon. Currents filled with plankton drifted
haphazardly
with the winds.

Lost dots in
a great poem, three vessels were obstinately following their course. They were
sailing in an ocean of colours, impervious to the nonchalant charms and languid
enchantment of the waves gleaming with a thousand facets as they strutted about
in their splendour.

Heading
east, the Oms were carrying all the hopes of a race that had broken free from
its chains. They formed a triangle, the first two vessels towing the other, its
hull teeming with roped up Oms.

Whipped by
the spray, their sweat washed off by the rosy foam, the Oms were weighing in
clusters on the last ship's glistening hull. Muscles taut with effort, like
flesh sprawled tightly on a metal vice, they kept in place giant bolts on the
last plate's lips. The ship was being finished as it travelled.

The Oms had
left behind all personal worries. Individual suffering did not count anymore.
They were one soul striving for one goal only. Occasionally, knocked out by a
wave's splendid slap, some lost consciousness, the others hardly taking notice.
Having lost their balance, others were hanging strangled by their rope, like
trinkets around the sides of the hull. The whims of the roll finished them off
as it soaked them sporadically. The ship dragged in its wake at least twenty
inert puppets skimming on the ocean's muscular back.

Inside,
others were labouring symmetrically and suffocating beneath the iron sheets as
the animal scent of effort mingled with the smell of heated metal. Strong backs
were bleeding, pressing up for hours beneath a screwdriver operated by
countless arms.

The water
periodically filtered through the slits, harshly spraying the wounds caused by
the exertion. Other workers were pumping relentlessly, throwing back in the sea
the brine of oxides and urea which rolled around their legs. All this in the
shadowy and sticky false light of vapours and in a great murmur of swearing and
effort giving rhythm to the screeching of the grating thread; an insane
symphony punctuated by the sea striking the vessel like cymbals.

***

When all was
finished, the night had long drowned the sunset's splendours.

Exhausted,
the outside teams went through the hatch one by one. The workers were relieved
as engineers started to fit the last reactor. The worst was over.

The foreman
informed the quartermaster who immediately announced the good news to Terr.
This was done thanks to a telecable stretched between the two ships.

'Excellent',
said Terr. 'How long will it take?'

The
quartermaster hesitated:

it's
hard to tell precisely, Aedile.
Between ten and fifteen hours, according to the foreman.
Drying the coils will take time, not to mention the trouble caused by the
swell. If we had to do it again...'

'Yes, I
know', said Terr. We should have fitted the coils before leaving. Drying will
last longer than the time saved fitting them. Improvising is bound to lead to
errors. But let's not dwell on the past.'

Terr turned
to quartermaster 1 standing by his side.

'How long until we reach the Siwo?'

'Twelve
hours, at a steady pace.'

'Did you
hear your colleague from vessel 1?' said Terr leaning over the telecable. In
twelve hours we'll reach the Siwo current. Everything must be done by then.

Quartermaster
3's voice hesitated once again:

'I think
it'd be wise not to count on it, Aedile.'

'Do your
best. Keep me updated on your progress in ten hours. If you're late we'll
reduce our speed.'
'Right.'

Terr hung up
and paced up and down his cabin.

'We'll gain
a lot of time by taking advantage of Siwo's speed,' he said. 'This detour is
shortening the journey. But to keep towing at this rate is out of the question.
What gap are you planning between each ship?'