Slave Empire - Prophecy (4 page)

The swollen,
sickly sun's first rays woke her, stealing into the grove with
their slight warmth like fingers of light. She sat up with a start
as the events of the previous day flooded back, making her glance
up at the sky. It contained only dirty grey clouds, and, after
studying it for several minutes, she relaxed. A hoar frost whitened
the ground, liming the trees and bracken with a coating of ice.

The chilly air
nipped at her nose and numbed her fingers and feet. Her legs had
stiffened, and the pain made her gasp as she dragged more wood from
the dwindling pile and lighted a new fire. As soon as a tiny blaze
took hold, she huddled close to it and almost thrust her hands into
the flames to warm them. Her breath steamed, and she clenched her
jaws to prevent her teeth from chattering as she waited for the sun
to warm the air.

By
mid-morning, her jeans were dry, and she ate a little food, then
dressed and sat beside the fire. She pondered the flying saucer's
attack again, trying to fathom the reason for the senseless assault
on an unimportant girl. The more she thought about it, the more
convinced she became that she would never figure it out. She sighed
and stared into the fire, remembering the dangers that had honed
her reactions so keenly.

Her parents
had joined the revolution in twenty-twelve, when wages had been cut
to food only, and so many had lost their jobs. It had been madness,
not a real revolution. They had been killed in a riot when the
troops had shot most of the crowd on the government's orders.
Massacring crowds reduced the overpopulation that ruined the
economy and threatened dwindling food supplies, as well as curbing
civil unrest. People had become a burden, and the army had been
ordered to sacrifice the many for the sake of the few. She and Rawn
had been at home when their parents were killed, and ran away to
avoid the looters who came afterwards in search of food.

Harvests had
failed, and the erratic weather wrought havoc. Floods had washed
away entire crops, while droughts hit other areas. Unseasonal hail
storms had wreaked terrible damage, and freak winds or wild fires
ruined what was left. Earthquakes had ravaged some countries, and
the resulting famine and disease wiped out entire populations.
Crops that had survived the weather became sickly, and the
remaining livestock was slaughtered. The ozone layer had thinned,
and millions starved. People had eaten their pets, turned on each
other and abandoned their children to die in the streets. Mankind
had turned to the last remaining food source and hunted whales and
dolphins to extinction, wiping out fish stocks.

It had been a
time of turmoil and terror. People had killed randomly, burnt and
looted in their desperate search for food. The government had
ordered the army to keep order and reduce the population, but the
soldiers rebelled and went home to their families. The putrid stink
of decaying or burning flesh had filled the air, and hospitals
became charnel houses. All the while, the world had died.

Rawn had
looked after her since then. They had run and hidden, trusting no
one, two frightened children in a world gone mad. They had nearly
been caught a few times, but survived.

Rayne frowned
as a prickle of unease made the hairs on her nape rise, and glanced
up. Years of being hunted had honed her survival instincts, and she
never ignored her sixth sense. Her eyes flicked back down as a
golden glow appeared about ten metres away, growing brighter until
she was forced to squint. Seconds later it faded. A man dressed in
strange white clothes, a tinted helmet hiding his face, stood
there.

Rayne stared
at him, frozen with shock and fear. If he had moved she would have
run, and she sensed his scrutiny as she groped for and found a
fist-sized rock. The stranger wore what appeared to be a weapon on
his hip, and she waited, holding her breath as she wondered what
use the rock would be if he chose to use his weapon. The stone dug
into her palm, which grew damp with nervous perspiration, and she
was forced to breathe again as her lungs burnt for air. The golden
light shrouded the stranger again, and when faded, he had
vanished.

After a while,
she rose and limped to the spot where he had stood, searching for
tracks. She found two footprints, which proved she had not been
hallucinating, and she shivered, glancing up at the empty sky. The
uneasiness stayed with her, and her neck prickled in warning,
making her retreat to her fire and build it into a blaze. Her eyes
darted around, vigilant for any sign of danger.

On board a
ship that orbited high above the Earth, the man who had recently
shed a white bio suit studied the image from the spy cam he had
ordered to follow the girl. The wafer-thin crystal screen gave a
sharp, perfect colour picture, almost as if he was still there with
her, just a few metres away. He recalled his amazement when he had
first caught sight of her. The shock had kept him rooted to the
spot for several minutes, ignoring the growing urgency of the
telepathic calls of his crew. He still thought it amazing to find
such a creature on this dying, polluted world, where half the
people had degenerated to shambling monsters and the other half
were undernourished and diseased.

Although he
had been sent to find her, he had not been prepared for his first
encounter, and still marvelled at it. Her golden hair had gleamed
in the weak sunlight and her grimy skin glowed with health. The
sharp intelligence of her luminous eyes had startled him. They had
been filled with suspicion and fear, while her thin, callused hand
had gripped a largish rock, ready to hurl it at him if he made the
wrong move. She exuded a kind of leashed savagery, the alertness of
a wild animal mixed with the rational response of a civilised
being.

This girl was
the one. He was more certain of it than he had ever been of
anything in his life. He turned to the book that lay on the desk's
smooth white surface and ran his fingers over it. Soft leather
bound it, and the gold that trimmed its edges also depicted the
name inscribed on its cover.

The Olban, set
down thousands of years ago, contained all the teachings and
prophesies that had guided the Atlantean culture throughout the
ages. This particular copy was, of course, a symbolic token. His
home city's high priest had given it to him before he left on this
mission. It signified the sacred duty imposed upon him and his
crew; a constant reminder of their objective. The Olban's contents
were, and always had been, available on the central data processor.
Over the centuries, many prophesies had come true, affirming the
wisdom of the ancient seers who had foretold them.

Now a grave
and momentous prophecy was about to unfold, which could change the
course of the Atlantean Empire's fortune. He opened the book to the
marked page and read the short passage that had brought him to this
dying planet.

'In the time
of the junction of Perinus and Lodis, when the comet Vistar appears
in the heavens, travel through the void to the dying world. Here
will be found a golden girl child, pure of spirit and flesh, she
who must be saved, so she may save Atlan.'

That time had
come. On Atlan, astronomers had seen the two stars, Perinus and
Lodis, melt into one, and the comet had drawn its fiery trail
across the night sky. The council had sent out all available ships
to search for dying planets, and he had found this one. This girl,
he was positive, was the golden girl child of whom the prophecy
spoke. All the other people were sick, dying or depraved, yet she
was perfect.

Tallyn turned
back to the screen as the girl glanced around as if she sensed the
spy-cam, even though she could not see it. Remarkable. Her harsh
existence must have honed her senses to the point where she could
detect the slight static frisson of the spy-cam's shield. The
spy-cam employed a fluctuating stress shield that warped the light
around it, effectively making it invisible to the naked eye, and it
floated high above her on a tiny anti-gravity coil.

Touching a
crystal on the console, he called the ship's laboratory. Professor
Rasham's mild, cultured face appeared on another screen, looking,
as he always did, as if he had just been pulled through a hedge
backwards, his thinning grey hair standing out in a wild halo.

Tallyn
suppressed a smile. "Professor Rasham, have you the results of the
air samples you took?"

Rasham's eyes
brightened. This was his favourite subject. "Why yes, Commander.
Basically, it's similar to our atmosphere still, in spite of the
pollution, although that is a major difference, of course. There's
less oxygen than is desirable, and the pollution factor is high.
Methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide gases have
been found in far higher concentrations than is good for a person.
The ozone layer is breaking up rapidly now, and the ultra violet
and infrared radiation is getting very bad. The result of many
decades of rampant greenhouse gas emissions, of course."

"Projections,
Professor?"

The professor
harrumphed. "Ah, well, not good. The increased radiation is killing
the, err, natives. Most suffer from malignant cancers, apart from a
few who have avoided direct sunlight, and some have mutated beyond
all recognition. However, it's killing off the vegetation now, and
once that goes, the oxygen level will become too low to support
life. The polar caps are melting, causing the seas to rise, and, of
course, the increase in temperature is causing more water to
evaporate into the atmosphere to form clouds, which are trapping
still more heat -"

"What will
happen to the people?" Tallyn interrupted.

The professor
shot him an injured look. "Well, those who don't die from the solar
radiation will die of suffocation or starvation. They are going to
die, that's certain. Earth is turning into another Venus. Soon
it'll be just as hostile, with a corrosive methane-ammonia
atmosphere, and nothing will survive. The temperature will continue
to rise until the core expands and volcanoes erupt, spewing molten
lava over the surface. Which will be dry, of course, as all the
seas will have evaporated -"

"How long,
Professor?"

The
mild-featured man looked vexed at the constant interruptions. “Hard
to say, exactly. Maybe three or four years before the people are
gone, then the clouds will continue to thicken -"

"Thank you,
Professor."

Tallyn broke
the connection with a sigh. Like most elderly, over-educated men,
Rasham loved to extol his subject, and if not kept under control
could produce a monologue that would consume hours of precious time
in educational, but unproductive discourse. It had taken Rasham
close to five hundred years to gather all his vast knowledge, and
it seemed to long for egress, taking control of his tongue in order
to gain access to a fresh mind. Once Rasham had possessed high-cast
black and white hair, but age had mixed it into a dull grey
monotone that most Atlanteans found unattractive. Then again, one
as old as the professor did not care about such things anymore.

Turning back
to the spy screen, he watched the girl feed the fire, her eyes
scanning countryside and sky. He wondered if she possessed more
than the five senses humans were limited to, for she seemed
unusually astute. Some studies conducted on humans indicated that a
few had developed one of two extra senses over the course of their
evolution, and most possessed a latent but never-awakened
ability.

Leaning back,
he pressed his hand to the sensor pad before him and closed his
eyes, selected his topic from the central data bank and allowed the
rush of data to enter his mind. It streamed in, a mixture of
written information, images and sensory perceptions too intense for
an untrained mind to absorb. The history of humankind, their
biology, language, culture and peculiarities flashed into his mind
in a few moments, preparing him for the ordeal of dealing with a
member of this alien and heretofore-un-contacted race.

The reasons
for their isolation soon became clear. Their propensity for
violence and cruelty, their strange disregard for the destruction
they had wrought upon their planet, dooming their civilisation, was
enough to befuddle the most open of minds. It struck him as odd
that the Golden Child should come from such an inept society, but
then, perhaps she was the first to see the mistakes of the
past.

Rayne spent
the day resting beside the fire, nibbling food bars and mulling
over the increasingly strange events. First the scarlet saucer,
then the white-clad man, both with no logical explanation. It
seemed unlikely that the white-clad man was connected to the
scarlet saucer, yet she found it hard to believe that two alien
ships studied Earth's demise. Also, why were they so interested in
her? Were they doing this to other people too? At least the
white-clad man had not appeared threatening, and she hoped the
scarlet saucer had left the area.

The odd
feeling that she was being watched stayed with her, even though
there appeared to be no reason for it. She spent another night
curled up in the blankets beside the fire, but the next day the
food ran out and there was little firewood left. When the fire died
and her stomach rumbled, Rayne decided she would have to go back
into the city. Without food, she would only grow weaker, and she
could not rely on her brother returning. Rawn could be dead for all
she knew, and to sit here hoping he would come back was sheer
folly. Only the fittest survived on this cruel world, so she had to
find food or starve.

Quitting her
warm nest took a great deal of willpower, and her injured legs
protested. She buried the blankets under the rock and forced
herself to her feet, grimaced and bit her lip to stifle her
whimpers of pain. Her first few steps were so excruciating that she
nearly returned to her camp, unable to face the long walk. She
refused to lie there and starve, however, so she pressed on,
ignoring the agony that shot up her legs at every stride. As she
walked, her stiff muscles loosened, allowing her to walk a little
more freely, but fresh blood dampened her jeans. She stumbled
often, unable to hide the dangerous weakness that, if a gang of
vagrants or another raider saw it, might lead to disaster.