Authors: Eric Brown
The
firing ceased, suddenly, and an eerie silence prevailed. A cold wind blew into
the ruins, eddying a heavy fall of snow around their running forms. Kaluchek
was shaking, whether from cold or fear she had no idea.
The
giant came to a high, buttressed wall through which a ragged gap had been
blasted. It pressed itself against the masonry, holding the remains of its left
arm to its side with its right hand and grimacing in pain. It peered around the
corner, into a cobbled courtyard, and said something to itself in a language
quite different to that of the rats.
Kaluchek
followed its gaze and saw, standing in the centre of the courtyard, the squat
teardrop shape of a small golden spaceship.
She
looked at Joe, who was staring at the ship and grinning like an idiot. They
embraced, Kaluchek tremulous with hope.
The
giant shouted a command, gestured with its uninjured arm and led the way at a
sprint across the cobbles to the ship. Kaluchek heard the whine of gunshot as
they fled. She ducked reflexively, dreading the thought of failing so close to
their goal. Shots rang off the carapace of the ship, scoring silver streaks
across its golden livery.
The
giant came to a hatch and touched a panel, and the entrance eased open with
painful precision. The giant turned and laid down a barrage of fire while the
others sped inside one by one, first Jacob and its mate, followed by Olembe and
Carrelli. Kaluchek and Joe dived aboard, then the giant alien.
The
hatch eased shut and Kaluchek found herself weeping with relief.
The
alien pushed its way past them without ceremony and strode down a short
corridor to what was clearly the control room. Unlike the flight-deck of the
Lovelock,
which had been brightly illuminated and finished with clean,
bright surfaces, the interior of this ship was matte black, its contours of
markedly alien design, with strangely rounded surfaces that put Kaluchek in
mind of the chitin of a giant beetle.
The
alien dropped into one of two horizontal couches and hauled from the ceiling an
arrangement of jet black rods and spars which reminded her of nothing so much
as the antlers of a moose. It gripped the frame with its good arm, then turned
and yelled something to Jacob.
As
they watched, the rat scrambled between the control couches and hauled open a
storage unit, emerging seconds later with a square of black material which it
passed to the giant.
On
closer inspection, Kaluchek saw the full extent of the alien’s injury. It appeared
that the whole of its shoulder had been blown away, severing arteries, which
pumped black blood like engine oil across the surface of its silver suit.
The
alien took the material and applied it to its injured shoulder.
Carrelli
barked at Jacob. The rat looked up at her and replied.
“What?”
Olembe asked.
Carrelli
said, smiling, “Jacob calls it a magic healer.”
“Those
two know each other?”
Carrelli
shook her head. “They’ve met. I don’t know the full story.”
Kaluchek
was about to ask her how she knew the language of the rat people, but at that
second the ship powered up and rose, wobbling precariously from side to side.
They hung on, swaying. Jacob’s mate whined in fear and clung to it, eyes wide
in fear. Jacob spoke to it, in tones Kaluchek took to be reassuring.
Through
the triangular forward viewscreen, she saw the remains of the jail fall away,
to be replaced by the snow-filled grey of the sky. The giant was grimacing with
pain as it handled the frame.
Carrelli
crouched beside the couch and spoke to the alien in urgent tones.
The
giant snapped a reply.
Carrelli
said, “It came here on a mission, to destroy some weapon. I’m not sure what.
However, for some reason it was unable to locate the weapon.”
“Where’s
it taking us?” Olembe said.
Carrelli
spoke to the alien as the ship tilted nose-down and accelerated away from the
ruined jail, low buildings flashing by on either side. The giant concentrated
on its controls, then replied.
Carrelli
turned to them. “It’s returning home, to the world adjacent to this one.”
“They
have the technology to help us find a habitable world,” Kaluchek said. “Could
you ask it—”
Carrelli
looked at her. “The only problem is, it’s not sure it will survive long enough
to complete the journey.”
“Jesus!”
Olembe cried. Kaluchek glanced at the giant’s shoulder, where viscous blood
seeped from under the edge of the so-called magic healer.
Carrelli
spoke to the alien, and it gestured with its head to the second couch. She slid
into it, barking questions. The alien replied. The Italian nodded and pulled a
second frame from the ceiling, fingering control studs and gripping the frame
with both hands.
Beside
Kaluchek, Joe slid to the floor and sat with his back against the bulkhead,
watching what was happening in a daze. She lowered herself down beside him.
The
rats huddled together between the couches, looking from the giant to Carrelli
and back again.
Carrelli
frowned as she wrestled with the controls, barking at the giant in its own
language. The ship wobbled as it sped over the city. She cursed in Italian as
they missed clipping an airship by a matter of metres. They were climbing now,
the city mansions falling away on either side and the dark mountains looming
ahead. The scene through the forward viewscreen was dotted with colourful airships,
which seemed to be accelerating in order to avoid collision.
Carrelli
screamed at the alien, who was slow to reply. Kaluchek glanced at it. Blood was
pumping steadily now from beneath the healer, spreading in a syrupy slick
across its chest and over the couch. The alien’s face appeared slack, its great
flat eyes distant.
She
felt a sudden overwhelming fear. To have come so far, only to die in a crashed
alien spaceship...
Carrelli
yelped at the giant again, then cursed in Italian. The giant turned its head,
gazed across at her with dimming eyes. It spoke quietly, then glanced between
the couches at Jacob, and addressed the rat.
Jacob
flung its head back, opening its muzzle in a howl of anguish.
On
the first control couch, the giant’s right arm slackened, losing its grip on
the frame which bobbed back on hydraulics and resumed its original position
flush with the ceiling.
Kaluchek
could see, from the opacity of the giant’s eyes, that it was dead.
Jacob
rushed forward, clutched the giant’s arm and keened.
Olembe
said, “You can fly this thing, Carrelli?”
She
stared through the screen, her features set with concentration as she moved the
frame minimally, thumbing controls and reading numerals from a tiny console
that bobbed on an umbilical before her.
“I’m
doing my very best, Friday.”
They
were screaming towards the foothills, the city receding in their wake. Ahead,
the serried steel-grey ramparts of the encircling mountains seemed to rush at
them with alarming speed. Carrelli eased the ship into a steady climb,
following the incline of the mountains towards their peaks. Kaluchek and the
others tipped, clinging to handholds to stop themselves rolling.
Joe
closed his eyes, tipped his head back and laughed.
“What?”
Kaluchek said.
“Fifteen
years ago, on Mars, I was aboard the shuttle that narrowly missed clipping the
observatory on the top of Olympus Mons. This brings it all back, Sis.”
“A
thousand and fifteen years ago,” she reminded him, taking his arm.
They
were screaming up the side of the summit, the snow-capped peaks rushing by in a
blinding avalanche.
Olembe
called out, “Hope silver suit told you where its homeworld was, Carrelli?”
She
didn’t spare him a glance, just concentrated on the controls and replied,
“There was no time for that, Friday. Anyway, that doesn’t matter now.”
She
turned and looked at them. “The ship isn’t functioning at maximum efficiency. I
can’t work out what is wrong. But it might just be capable of getting us to the
next tier.”
Kaluchek
felt something tighten around her heart, a quick throb of hope followed by fear
that they might not make it all the way.
“Look,”
Carrelli said, indicating the forward viewscreen.
They
looked. They were flying almost vertically now, and ahead of the ship the grey
cloud cover was shredding, giving way to a deep blue.
The
rat Carrelli had named Jacob rushed to the screen and stared out, gripping a
handhold and chattering to its mate. It pointed, and Kaluchek saw the reason
for its excitement. Directly ahead of the ship, spiralling through space with
an immensity that took the breath away, Kaluchek made out the next tier—the
third from bottom, she calculated— and the one above that, and, in the
distance, the faint curl of the tier above the central sun. As she stared, the
great primary burned with an actinic glare, the brightest object they had seen
for what seemed like a long, long time.
The
sight provoked a strange reaction from Jacob’s friend, or perhaps not so
strange. It rushed into the corridor, hiding its eyes behind its paws and
gibbering to itself in fear. Jacob, conversely, was drawn to the sight of the
celestial wonder, pressing its snout up against the viewscreen and staring out
in silence.
The
ship punched through the last of the cloud cover, emerging into space between
the tiers, and sunlight flooded the flight-deck with blinding illumination.
Kaluchek
laughed. “It’s like the summer sun back home,” she said to Joe, “after a long
hard winter...”
Olembe
turned to Carrelli and said. “Now, you intend to tell us how you know their
lingo?”
She
stared at the controls, gave a minimal nod. “ESO implanted the original
maintenance team with neuro-smartware.”
“You’re
joking—it was still in its experimental stages years ago when the plug was
pulled.”
She
went on, “ESO kept working on it, perfecting it, or getting it as damned near
perfect as possible. One of the subroutines was a decoder.” She touched her
right temple with long fingers. “I also have various logic systems that help me
process possibilities, integrated smartware slaved to my cortex.”
“Jesus
Christ,” Olembe said. “You’re a cyborg.”
“I
wouldn’t say that, Friday. I’m implanted. Augmented, if you like.”
Kaluchek
said, “So that’s why...” She shook her head. “I don’t know. You knew things.
Worked them out so fast it seemed unnatural.” She realised something. “The
symbol on the ziggurat’s door—”
“It
was nothing unnatural,” Carrelli said, “just very powerful, parallel
processing.”
“What
else have you got in there?” Olembe asked with suspicion.
Before
Carrelli could reply, Kaluchek said, “Christ, Olembe. What’s your problem? We
should be thankful Gina’s augmented, for fucksake!”
He
smiled. “Hey, I’m just curious, is all. Just want to know what other surprises
to expect.”
Kaluchek
felt a flare of anger. “You asshole, Olembe.”
Carrelli
cut in, “That is all, a decoder, a logic subroutine, improved hearing and
vision, limited telemetry systems.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m still human.”
“We
aren’t worried,” Kaluchek reassured her. “It’s just that some people,” she
looked across at Olembe, “can’t take being second best.”
“Shut
it, Kaluchek,” Olembe began.
“Look,”
Joe said, pointing through the forward viewscreen.
The
command had the effect of silencing them. They all looked.
They
were approaching the third tier, a string of beaded worlds, green and blue and
ochre, with between each separate landmass a band of lapis lazuli shimmering in
the sunlight—the dividing seas.
Carrelli
said, “I’m not going to risk trying to make it to the fourth tier. We’re lucky
to have got so far. I’ll try to get us down in one piece, and maybe then we can
work out what the problem is, okay?”
Joe
said, “That sounds fine to me.”
“Okay,
hold on tight.” Carrelli repeated the command in rat for the benefit of Jacob and
its mate. “This might be a bumpy landing.”
They
held on as the spaceship slipped into orbit around the third tier. A minute
later Kaluchek made out—an impressionistic blur through the sidescreen—a wide
swathe of brilliant green vegetation shot through with the vast, serpentine
coils of a river.
She
gripped Joe’s arm and closed her eyes.
Elder Velkor Cannak
was a pious man, and he believed that anyone who opposed the Church— that is,
opposed the word of God—was by definition evil.
This
made the suppression of dissent, the imprisonment, torture and execution of
dissidents, the logical consequence of a state run by the Church for the
greater glory of God. For the good of the people, who for thousands of years
had enjoyed unparalleled prosperity under the rule of the Church, severe
measures from time to time had to be imposed. Anarchy ruled before the Church
came to power, with innocent citizens the victims of the unscrupulous and the
power-hungry. The Church had stopped all that, imposed its rule, and Agstarn
had reaped the benefits.