* * * *
The Fall of Tartarus
By Eric Brown
* * * *
‘Destiny on Tartarus’ Spectrum SF 2, 2000
‘A Prayer for the Dead’ Interzone 96,1995
‘The Eschatarium at Lyssia’ Interzone 122,1997
‘The Ultimate Sacrifice’ Spectrum SF 4, 2000
‘The People of the Nova’ Interzone 150,1999
‘Vulpheous’ Interzone 129,1998
‘Hunting the Slarque’ Interzone 141,1999
‘Dark Calvary’ SF Age, January, 1999
I’d like to thank the editors of the magazines where these stories first appeared: Scott Edelman, Paul Fraser and David Pringle.
* * * *
* * * *
|
I |
’d heard many a tale about Tartarus Major, how certain continents were technological backwaters five hundred years behind the times; how the Church governed half the planet with a fist of iron, and yet how, across scattered islands and sequestered lands, a thousand bizarre and heretic cults prospered too. I’d heard how a lone traveller was hardly safe upon the planet’s surface, prey to wild animals and cut-throats. Most of all I’d heard that, in two hundred years, Tartarus would be annihilated when its sun exploded in the magnificent stellar suicide of a supernova.
It was hardly the planet on which to spend a year of one’s youth, and many friends had tried to warn me off the trip. But I was at that age when high adventure would provide an exciting contrast to the easy life I had lived so far. Besides, I had a valid reason for visiting Tartarus, a mission no degree of risk could forestall.
I made the journey from Earth aboard a hyperlight sailship like any other that plied the lanes between the Thousand Worlds. The spaceport at Baudelaire resembled the one I had left at Athens four days earlier: a forest of masts in which the sails of the ships were florid blooms in a hundred pastel shades, contrasting with the stark geometry of the monitoring towers and stabilising gantries. The port was the planet’s only concession to the modern day, though. Beyond, a hurly-burly anarchy reigned, which to my pampered sensibilities seemed positively medieval. In my naivety I had expected a rustic atmosphere, sedate and unhurried.
The truth, when I stepped from the port and into the streets of the capital city, was a rude awakening. Without mechanised transport, the by-ways were thronged with hurrying pedestrians and carts drawn by the local bovine-equivalent; without baffles to dampen the noise, the city was a cacophony of clashing sounds: the constant din of shouted conversation, the cries of vendors, the lowing moans of draught-animals. The streets were without the directional lasers in various colours to guide one’s way, without sliding walkways, and even without airborne deodorants to combat the more noisome odours, in this case the miasma of unwashed bodies and animal excreta. My horror must have been evident as I stood transfixed before the gates of the spaceport.
A stranger at my side, a tall man in Terran dress - seemingly he too had just arrived on Tartarus - caught my eye and smiled.
‘My fifth time on this hell-hole,’ he said, ‘and still my first reaction to the place is shock.’ He mopped the sweat from his brow and turned to a street-vendor selling cooled juices from a cart. He signalled for one, then glanced at me. ‘Care to join me? I can recommend them - an antidote to this heat.’
I decided that a cool refreshment would go down very well before I sought my hotel. The vendor set about blending the drinks in a shaker.
‘First time on Tartarus?’ the stranger asked.
‘My very first,’ I said.
‘You’ll get used to it - you might even come to love the place. I’d advise you to get out of the city. The beauty of Tartarus is in the deserted wilds. The planet at sunset is something magical.’ He stared across the street, at the great swollen orb of the orange sun setting behind a skyline of three-storey wooden buildings.
The vendor passed us two tall mugs. ‘Three lek, three lek,’ he said, pointing to each of us.
‘Allow me,’ the stranger said. From his coat pocket he withdrew a credit chip and proffered it to the vendor.
The vendor was arguing. ‘No credit chip! Only coins!’
‘But I have no coins, or for that matter notes, until I find a bank.’ The stranger looked embarrassed.
The vendor waved away the stranger’s credit chip and transferred his attention to me. ‘You - coins. Six lek.’
‘Allow me to pay for these,’ I said. I looked around for somewhere to deposit the mugs while I found my money pouch.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ he said.
He saw the difficulty I was having and, before I could pass him the mugs, reached towards my pocket. ‘Do you mind? Please, allow me,’ he said. ‘This one?’
I nodded, turning so that he could take the pouch from my coat pocket. He opened the drawstrings and withdrew six lek, paid the vendor and then returned the pouch to my pocket.
The transaction accomplished, the vendor pushed his cart away.
I took a long draught of the delicious juice, like no concoction I had ever tasted. ‘Do you know the planet well?’ I asked.
‘I’ve spent a couple of years on Tartarus,’ he said. ‘Let’s say that I have a traveller’s knowledge of the place. Buzatti, by the way.’
‘Sinclair,’ I said. ‘Sinclair Singer.’
He drained his mug and dropped it into the gutter, and I did the same. ‘If you’re dining tonight,’ Buzatti said, ‘perhaps I could return the compliment? I’m staying at the Rising Sun, along Bergamot Walk. How about dinner? Around nine?’
I told him I would be delighted, and took his proffered hand. ‘Around nine it is,’ I said.
‘Till then.’ He saluted, turned, and was soon lost to sight in the crowd flowing down the street.
I found a rickshaw - or rather a rickshaw driver found me - and I gave as my destination the Imperial Hotel. As I sat back in the padded seat and was ferried swiftly down the surging stream of packed humanity, I felt gladdened by my chance encounter. My major fear had been to be alone in the alien city; now I had an urbane dining companion, and one who was familiar with this strange world.
My optimism rose still further when the Imperial Hotel turned out to be an old, ivied building set back from the street in its own placid lawns. I paid the driver in the units I had used aboard the sailship, as he had no machine with which to take my chip. Then I dismounted, hauled my travelling bag up the wide steps, and entered the cool foyer.
I had had the foresight to book a room from Earth, via the shipping agency. I gave my name to the clerk. ‘Three nights, Mr Singer . . . That will be three hundred shellings, please.’
I pulled my money bag from the pocket of my coat and withdrew a bundle of notes, which I proffered to the clerk. He frowned at the wad in my outstretched hand.
‘Is there some problem?’ I asked.
‘Indeed there is,’ he said, taking the notes and laying them upon the counter. ‘Behold, they are worthless scraps of paper - not even competent forgeries!’
‘But that’s impossible!’ I cried. ‘I exchanged my Terran notes for Tartarean currency at the bank in the port! They would never have robbed—’
‘Then someone else has taken the liberty,’ he said.
I recalled that Buzatti had helped me with my money bag. Only he might have robbed me of my life savings! I very nearly collapsed, overcome with despair at what I might do now, and self-loathing that I had been such a fool.
Buzatti had given me the name of his hotel. ‘Do you know if there is a hotel on Bergamot Walk called the Rising Sun?’ I asked.
The clerk frowned at me. ‘No hotel of that name exists,’ he replied.
I told him that I would book a room for one night, and paid for it with the spare notes I had in my trouser pocket.
He completed various forms and handed me the key. ‘And I’d contact the police if I were you, sir.’
In a daze I made my way to the elevator and rode to the third floor. Once in my room I dropped my bag, slammed the door and sat on the bed, disconsolate at the prospect of an early end to my quest.
The famous night lights of Tartarus were flickering in the southern sky, a writhing aurora that danced on the horizon like the flames of hell. I stared through the window, the beauty of the spectacle and the skyline of the city in silhouette serving to remind me of how little time I would now be spending here.
My mind in a limbo of uncertainty, I sorted through my bag and found the persona-cube. I carried it onto the balcony, placed it on the table, and sat with my feet lodged on the balcony rail. I was loath to activate the device; at this juncture my self-esteem was at a low ebb, without it being drained any further.
I pulled the cube towards me. On impulse my fingertips found the press-panel. In truth, I was lonely and in need of company - even the dubious company provided by the persona contained within the cube.
A sylvan scene appeared in the heart of the crystal: a vista of trees, a summer’s day, the wind soughing through the foliage with a sound like the crashing of surf.
A figure strolled into view, emerging from between the rows of trees and approaching the front plane of the cube. The image magnified, so that the tall, broad-shouldered figure filled the scene. It had been a while since I had last sought his company. I felt a constriction in my throat at the sight of him, a strange anxiety that visited me whenever I was in his presence - compounded this time by what I had to tell him.
Was it a measure of my lack of self-confidence that I felt I had to ask his advice at the risk of earning his opprobrium?
‘Father . . .’
Alerted to my presence, he smiled out at me. ‘Isn’t it beautiful, Sinclair?’ He gestured about him. ‘Big Sur, California. Where are you? How are you keeping?’
I swallowed. ‘On Tartarus,’ I replied. ‘I’m well.’
‘Tartarus Major?’ he said.
I nodded. I had never been able to bring myself to tell him that Tartarus was where my flesh and blood father had met his end.
‘Well?’ he snapped, impatient.
‘Yes,’ I said. I still made the mistake of not answering his questions verbally: the verisimilitude of his likeness persuaded me that he could observe my every movement and gesture.
‘What are you doing on Tartarus, Sinclair?’ he asked.
I shrugged, then remembered myself and said, ‘I’m curious. I wanted to see the place. It’s unique, after all . . .’
The persona of my father before me was just that, a memory-response programme loaded into the cube’s computer banks ten years ago - a present from my father to my mother. I always considered it a measure of his cruelty - or his unthinking sentimentality - that he should have made a gift of such a thing shortly before he walked out on her.
She had given me the cube six years ago, on my tenth birthday, programmed to respond to my voice only. ‘Here, your father. It’s all you’ll ever see of him, Sinclair.’
Not long after that, I found a letter from my father on my mother’s bureau. I did not have the opportunity to read it before my mother entered her study and found me lurking suspiciously - but I did memorise his return address: that of a solicitor in Baudelaire. Over the next three nights, in the safety of my bedroom, I had written a long letter to my absent father, and added a postscript that upon my sixteenth birthday I would make the voyage to Tartarus and attempt to find him.
Then, when I was twelve, my mother told me that my father had died on Tartarus. It had been a measure of my confusion - a mixture of my own grief and an inability to assess the extent of hers - that I had refrained from asking her for details. In consequence I knew nothing of how he had died, where exactly on Tartarus he had perished, or even what he had been doing on the planet in the first place.
Now my father stepped over a fallen log and sat down. He was a big man, ruggedly handsome, with blond hair greying at the temples, and blue eyes.
‘Sinclair, how’s your mother keeping?’
He always asked after mother, every time I activated the cube. Always he called her ‘your mother’, and never her name, Susanna.
‘Well, boy?’ He seemed to stare straight out at me.
‘Mother died a month ago,’ I whispered. I dared not look up into his eyes, for fear of seeing simulated grief there, a mirror image of the genuine emotion that filled me.
‘Oh . . .’ he said at last. ‘I’m sorry.’
My mother had died peacefully at the villa I had shared with her. On her deathbed she had made me promise that I would cast away the persona-cube, forget about my father. And to please her I had given my promise, knowing full well that I would do no such thing.
‘So,’ he said, buoyancy in his tone, as if to support me in the ocean of my mourning. ‘How goes it on Tartarus?’
Hesitantly, bit by bit, I recounted my mishap on the street outside the spaceport. Perhaps I sought his admonition as punishment for my stupidity.
He listened with increasing incredulity showing on his face. ‘He robbed you of ten thousand new credits - he took the notes before your very eyes?’
‘But—’ I began.
‘How many times have I told you? Trust no one, give nothing away. Look after yourself and let others look after themselves. The principal and basic tenets of existence, Sinclair, which you continually fail to comprehend.’
‘But I can’t live like that - without trust, without charity ...’ I almost added, ’. . . without love,’ a corollary of his base pragmatism, but restrained myself. It would have begun an argument we had had many times before.
‘Manifestly,’ was his disgusted reply. ‘You live with trust, always feeling charitable to those who do not, and then you blubber when you find yourself cheated. Grow up, boy. You’re supposed to be a man!’
I reached out quickly and, in anger, switched him off. The cube went opaque. I sat without moving in the flickering ruddy twilight, anger slowly abating within me. I tried to tell myself that the sentiments expressed by my father’s persona were merely those of a lifeless puppet - but I knew that, had my father been alive today, he would have said the same things, endorsed the philosophy of self first, second, and last. The programme was, after all, a simulation of his personality.
I re-activated the cube. He was still in the forest, sitting on the log, staring down at his clasped hands.
‘Father . . .’
He looked up. ‘What is it, Sinclair?’
‘Have you never made mistakes?’
‘Of course I have, when I was young and callow. Like you.’
‘Tell me.’
He shook his head. ‘You cannot learn from the mistakes of others,’ he said. ‘Only from your own.’
I deactivated the cube.
My father - or rather this simulation of him - never spoke about his past. How many times had I heard him say, ‘The past is a foreign country, to which it is wise never to return’? As a consequence I knew next to nothing of my father, of his background, his occupations, his hobbies. I knew only his opinions, his philosophies, which some might say constitute the man. But I was hungry to know what he had been, what had made him what he was.
Even my mother had told me nothing of his past. I had wanted to quiz her, but at the same time had no desire to stir the ghosts that might return to haunt her lonely later years.
I returned inside and calculated my assets: the units I had left over from the ship, the loose coins I had in various pockets, the stash of notes I had secreted in an inner pocket in case of emergencies. In all I possessed some ninety new credits - plus a return ticket to Earth. Enough, I estimated, to see me through perhaps ten days on Tartarus. I would remain here for that long, then, and see what little I might learn in that short time.
It was past midnight by the time I got to bed, and well into the early hours before I finally slept. I dreamed of the teeming streets of Baudelaire, down which my father must have passed, and I dreamed of my father himself, the man whom I knew better than anyone else - and yet did not really know at all.
* * * *
On the morning of my first full day on Tartarus I woke early and descended to the foyer, where I consulted the map of Baudelaire hanging on a wall. The lawyer’s office was a kilometre distant. To save precious credits I elected to walk, and ignored the rickshaws lined up in the driveway, their drivers importuning me with ringing bells and cries. Although the hour was early, the streets were full. My route took me into the commercial heart of the city, down wide avenues thronged with citizens and flanked by the characteristic three-storey buildings with red-brick facades and steep, timber-tiled roofs. As I walked I began to worry that, after all these years, the lawyer might have moved office - or, worse, retired or died. The address was my only link on the planet to my father, and without it I would be lost.
I turned down a comparatively quiet side-street and with relief came across a crooked, half-timber building, with a sign bearing the legend Greaves and Partners swinging above the low entrance. I entered and climbed three narrow flights of stairs which switchbacked from landing to landing, the air redolent of beeswax polish and sun-warmed timber.
I hesitated before a tiny door bearing the lawyer’s name in gold, found my identity card, knocked and entered.
I was in a small chamber that was without the slightest sign of plastics, either in panelling, furniture or fittings; instead, all was wood, dark timbers warped with age. Sunlight streamed in through a tiny window at the far end of the room, illuminating piles of papers, yellowed and brittle with age. Nowhere could I see a computer.
A mild voice enquired, ‘And how might I be of assistance?’
A grey-haired, sharp-featured old man was peering at me through a pair of spectacles - the first I had ever seen in real life. He sat behind a vast desk before the window, a pen poised above a pile of paper.
I introduced myself, proffering my identity card. ‘You worked on behalf of my father, a good number of years ago.’
‘Take a seat, young man. Sinclair Singer?’ he said, peering at the card. ‘Your father was . . . don’t tell me, it’s coming back . . . Gregor - Gregor Singer.’ He nodded in evident satisfaction. ‘You’re very much like your father.’
I smiled, almost saying that I hoped my resemblance was only physical. ‘I came to Tartarus to find out more about him,’ I began.
Greaves constructed an obelisk of his long, thin fingers. ‘More than what?’ he asked pedantically.
‘More than what I know already, which is not much at all. I was young when my father left for Tartarus. My memories of him are vague.’
Greaves nodded in a gesture I took to be one of genuine understanding. ‘One minute,’ he said, pushing himself from his desk. On a wheeled swivel-chair he rattled across the floorboards, came to a timber cabinet and hauled open a drawer. He walked his fingers down a wad of tattered folders, found the relevant one and plucked it out. A second later he was parking himself behind the desk.
He shuffled through the papers. ‘I would hand these documents over to you, Sinclair - but as they are in code I doubt you would find them of much use. But if you have any questions I might be able to answer, then I’ll do my best.’
I stared at the sheaf of yellow paper on the desk, the contents of which surely said more about my father than I had ever known. But where to begin? I was aware that I had broken into a prickling sweat.
At a loss, I shrugged. ‘Well . . . why did he leave Earth? What was he doing on Tartarus?’
Greaves peered at me over his spectacles. ‘You certainly do not know much about your father, do you?’
I made an embarrassed gesture, as if the blame for my ignorance lay with myself, and not my father.
Greaves stared down at the papers spread before him, then up at me. ‘Gregor Singer was a soldier,’ he said. ‘He came to Tartarus to fight.’
I think I echoed his words in shock. A soldier? If there was one profession I abhorred above all others, it was that of a soldier. On Earth we lived in peaceful times; we settled disputes through negotiations and diplomacy.
‘I can see what you are thinking,’ Greaves said. ‘And, to answer your question - no, your father was not from Earth.’
The old lawyer was one step ahead of me. I had failed to work out that my father was not Terran.
‘He was born on Marathon, and reared in the Spartan guild. He was ordained from birth to be a fighter. He went to Earth to complete his training, and there he met the woman who became your mother. I know this much because he told me.’
I listened to his words in silence. From what I knew of my father through the persona-cube, his personal philosophy would suit a life-long soldier.
‘What was he doing on Tartarus?’ I asked, fearful of the answer.
Greaves peered at his papers. ‘He was a mercenary, hired to serve in the private army of a dictator who ruled the state of Zambria.’
‘And he died fighting for this dictator?’
‘Not at all. Your father resigned his commission. That was when I last saw him, a little over six years ago. He . . . he was a changed man from the soldier I had first encountered years before. Not only had he resigned, but he told me that no longer would he sell his services.’
‘He would no longer serve as a soldier?’ I said. ‘But why? What happened?’
Greaves leaned back in his chair and regarded me. ‘He did not tell me precisely, but I pieced together hints, read between the lines ... I cannot be certain, but I received the impression that your father led an invasion of a neighbouring state, to kidnap the son of the monarch. Something went tragically wrong with the mission and the boy was shot dead - I do not know whether your father was himself responsible, or a man under his command, but at any rate he carried the burden of guilt. Consequently, he resigned.’
Sunlight poured into the room through the cramped window. I sat in silence and tried to digest what Greaves had told me.
I came to my senses with the obvious question. ‘But you did write to my mother informing her of my father’s death?’ I asked.
Greaves frowned. ‘Not in so many words,’ he said at last. ‘I wrote to your mother to tell her that, as Gregor had not returned to reclaim certain possessions and monies left in my care, I therefore suspected that your father had passed on.’
‘But what proof did you have? Where did he go when he left here?’
‘Let me try to explain,’ Greaves murmured. ‘It was my impression that your father was seeking a way of exorcising the guilt he felt, that he was in need of absolution - perhaps through some form of self-sacrifice or mortification. He told me that he was heading for Charybdis, on the river Laurent which feeds into the Sapphire sea, a thousand kilometres west of here. There he intended to sign on a racing ship in the annual Charybdis challenge.’
I shook my head. ‘Which is?’
‘An event famous on Tartarus, a galleon race down the treacherous Laurent river and into the Sapphire sea. Perhaps thirty boats take part every year, and maybe two or three survive. The majority are broken on the underwater corals, and their crews either cut to death, drowned, or devoured by ferocious river-dwelling creatures. Your father left Baudelaire to join a ship. Two years later he had not returned ... I then wrote to your mother, stating as much as I’ve told you today.’
I sat, dazed by the barrage of images the old man’s words had conjured. From knowing so little about my father, I suddenly knew so much.
I heard myself saying, ‘I must go to Charybdis.’
Greaves spread his hands. ‘There are vench-trains daily from Baudelaire to the Sapphire sea, leaving the central station at ten in the evening.’
I recalled that he had said Charybdis was a thousand kilometres distant. ‘And how long does the journey take?’
‘If all goes well, the journey can be made in three to four days.’
‘Four days,’ I repeated. A week to make the round trip - and who knew how long I would need in Charybdis itself to learn my father’s fate ... I had just enough funds to last me a little over a week.
‘How much is the train fare to Charybdis?’ I asked.
‘A return fare costs about a thousand shellings.’
I despaired. A thousand shellings was roughly seventy new credits, which would take a good chunk from what little funds I had. Then I recalled what Greaves had said earlier. ‘You mentioned certain monies my father left in your safe-keeping?’
He spread his hands in an apologetic gesture. ‘I had them transferred to your mother’s account many years ago.’
I nodded, and stood. ‘I think I will make the journey to Charybdis,’ I said.
In that case I wish you bon voyage, Sinclair, and good luck.’
* * * *
That night, before I set off to the station, I activated my father’s persona-cube. He was no longer in the forest. The cube showed the skyball court in the grounds of the house I recalled from my early years. He stood at the base line, hitting the puck against the far wall with his shield.
‘Father.’
He gave the puck a nonchalant swipe, then strolled towards the edge of the court. His brow was dotted with sweat. As ever, I noticed his size, the quiet power of his physique. But I saw him in a different light now that I knew of his past.
‘How’s Tartarus?’ he asked, unbuckling his shield.
I ignored him. ‘I found out why you came here,’ I said. ‘I ... I found out what you were.’
He made a pretence of giving undue attention to a recalcitrant buckle on his shield. He looked up at last. ‘So?’
‘So . . . why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you trust me enough to tell me who you were?’
‘Sinclair . . . You were young. You’d never have understood. You belonged to a culture with different values.’
Anger welled within me. ‘Why did you leave mother?’
He sighed. ‘Duty, Sinclair. I had to go. My company ordered me to Tartarus. I made the cube before I went, for your mother.’
I had to laugh at this. ‘As if that compensated for your desertion! A programmed puppet in a glass box!’ I stopped there, gathered my thoughts. ‘Did you love mother?’ I asked at last.
He took a while to respond, then looked straight out at me. ‘Love? What’s love, Sinclair? When you get to my age, you’ll wonder if such a thing exists. Love is just biology’s bluff to get what it wants—’
‘You don’t know how . . . how mechanistic that sounds.’
My father smiled. ‘And what do you know about love, then, Sinclair?’
I was speechless for a few seconds. Then: ‘I loved mother!’
He winked. ‘Touché, Sinclair. Like I said, biology’s—’ He never finished. I reached out, deactivated the cube and in the same movement swept it from the table.
Later, I packed my bag and checked out of the hotel. The station was two kilometres away, and I decided to walk in a bid to work off my anger and frustration.
* * * *
There is something about setting off from a big city on a long journey to the coast that fills the soul with joy and expectation. As I walked through the gas-lit streets - passing hostelries packed with drunken revellers, and a carnival of giant clockwork amusements in a cobbled square - I soon forgot the words of my father’s persona and concentrated instead on his deeds since arriving on Tartarus. It afforded me a measure of satisfaction that he had seen fit to turn his back on soldiering. I wondered if before he met his end he had also put behind him his reductionist philosophies.
The Central Station, despite its title, was situated to the north of the city, in a quiet district of narrow, cobbled streets and shuttered shops. I had memorised the route from the hotel map, and I judged that I was almost upon the station with a good hour to spare before the departure of the train.
The sun had set two hours ago, though not the light with it. It was a feature of the erratic primary that its radiation sent probing fingers of light around the globe and filled the night sky with flickering red and orange streamers. The heavens between the eaves of the buildings were like none I’d ever seen, as if the air itself was aflame. I had paused in wonder to appreciate the gaudy display when I heard, from a nearby side-street, the detonation of what might have been a blunderbuss. The report echoed in the narrow alley and, seconds later, I was amazed to hear a sudden cry directly overhead. I looked up in time to see a strange sight indeed.
Silhouetted against the tangerine light was a slight, winged figure - human in form - made miniature by its altitude. It seemed to be engaged in a struggle with an invisible assailant. I made out madly kicking legs and a circular blur of wings, fighting against whatever was inexorably drawing it to earth. Then, as the shrieking girl lost height - she was close enough now for me to make out that she was little more than a child with long, diaphanous wings - I saw that her right ankle was ensnared by a rope, its diagonal vector crossing the rooftops and leading, presumably, to the poor girl’s assailants.
I looked up and down the street, hoping that I was not alone in witnessing this crime - and so might have allies in attempting a rescue - but there was not a soul in sight.
As the seconds passed, the flying girl was drawn closer to the rooftops. Fearing that she would soon by lost to sight, I ran down the alley towards where I judged the rope would come to earth. When I came to a turn in the alley, I paused and peered cautiously around the corner. Perhaps ten yards down the darkened by-way stood two figures and a large chest, its lid standing upright ready to receive its captive. The men were hauling on a rope, a great rifle discarded at their feet. The girl had lost all will to fight. She was treading air, mewling in pathetic entreaty as her captors pulled her down. At last they grabbed her by the ankles and forced her into the trunk, crushing her wings in the process.
I was about to step forward with a shout - hoping that my sudden appearance might startle the pair into flight - when an iron grip fixed on my wrist. I feared I had been caught by another of their party, but the words hissed in my ear told me otherwise. ‘Don’t be so impetuous! They would have no qualms about shooting you dead!’
‘But we can’t let them get away with it!’ I began, not even turning to look at my counsellor. I tried to struggle from his hold.
‘They won’t get away with their crime, believe me. Now come, this way.’ So saying he tugged me back around the corner. I struggled no further, picked up my bag where I had dropped it and followed the tall, striding figure down the alley. Only when we emerged into the cobbled main street, flushed with the roseate light from above, did I fully make out the man who had in all likelihood saved my life.
He towered over me, staring down impassively. I returned his gaze, in wonder and not a little revulsion. I think I might even have backed off a pace.
To begin with what is easy to describe: he wore a pair of thigh-high cavalier boots in jet-black leather, and a sleeveless jerkin of the same material. His head and arms were bare. His skin was also black - as jet black as his leathers - but not black in pigmentation. I peered more closely. His flesh was that of a charred corpse, burned and blistered, and - even more amazing - enmeshed in a grid of silver wires.
‘We had better make a move if we wish to catch the vench-train,’ he said.
I stared at him. ‘How do you know?’
He smiled, the reticulation of wires shifting on either side of his mouth. ‘What else would you be doing this close to the station, with a travelling bag?’
‘I’m leaving on the ten o’clock to Charybdis,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘The only train that leaves tonight,’ he said. ‘I too am heading for Charybdis.’
He shouldered his bag and turned, and as he walked off I made out two vertical slits in the back of his jerkin. Through each slit could be seen a silver spar, indented with sockets.
I hurried to catch him up. ‘Who . . . ?’ I began, unsure. ‘What are you?’
He stared ahead, eating up the cobbles with his giant stride. ‘I belong to the Guild of Blackmen,’ he replied. ‘You may call me Blackman.’
I introduced myself, my many questions silenced by his reserve and dominating presence.
As we turned the corner and approached the station - a long, low building on the far side of a square - he glanced down at me. ‘From Earth?’
‘I arrived just yesterday.’
‘Alone?’ He sounded surprised. ‘Alone on Tartarus?’
‘Alone.’
‘You are either a fool, boy - or supremely confident. What brings you here?’
‘Curiosity. Adventure. I’ve heard a lot about the planet. I want to see it for myself.’
He strode along in quiet contemplation for a while, his leathers creaking. ‘Were you informed also of the dangers? Tartarus is hardly safe for a lone traveller.’
‘So people have told me,’ I said.
‘I take it you go to Charybdis to watch the boat race?’
‘It takes place soon?’
‘In less than a week.’
I considered the prospect of watching the race in which four years ago my father had met his end. ‘In that case I’ll certainly be there,’ I said. ‘And you? Why do you go to Charybdis?’
He was a couple of seconds before replying, giving the impression that he did so with reluctance. ‘Work,’ he said at last, and would grant no more.
The covered concourse outside the station was full of waiting travellers. Families sat in circles around their possessions, bed-rolls, trunks, and bundles of anonymous oddments. Curled figures, covered from head to foot in blankets, slept despite the constant hubbub of conversation and the strident cries of food-vendors.
A melee of citizens jostled before the ticket counter. I did not relish the prospect of joining the fray. Blackman must have noticed my apprehension. ‘Wait here.’
He strode off across the concourse. I was surprised to see that perhaps a dozen individuals scurried to intercept him. Some remained at a respectful distance, palms pressed together and raised to their foreheads; others diffidently reached out and touched him as he brushed past, then touched their fingers to their lips and scurried off. When he approached the counter, the crowd there parted to allow him through, individuals bowing and backing away. Within seconds he stood before the grille, a barred opening hardly reaching the height of his chest, and a minute later he returned with the tickets. ‘All the single berths were taken,’ he said. ‘I took the liberty of booking a stateroom. I hope you have no objection to sharing?’
‘Not at all,’ I said, producing my money pouch. He waved it away, smiling. ‘One of the advantages of belonging to my guild is that one rarely pays for anything.’
‘Why . . . thank you,’ I said, thinking that with this saving I would be able to remain on Tartarus a little longer.
We passed through an arched entrance into the station. Baudelaire being the terminus, there were six platforms serving as many rail lines which branched out and crossed the continent in every direction. Only one platform was occupied by a train, its multiple carriages diminishing into the distance. Crowds promenaded up and down, preparatory to boarding the carriages for the long journey west.
I had expected to find steamtrains, but there was no chuntering of antique engines to be heard, and no great grey plumes filling the station. Nor were the rails as I had expected: they were arranged in a V formation, with one on the ground and two in the air, supported on a solid timber frame. If the rails were bizarre, then so were the carriages. Each coach, perhaps twenty metres long and five broad, was constructed of timber like a miniature galleon, with four central wheels where the keel would have been on an oceangoing vessel. A long beam, terminating in a wheel at each end, crossed the top of each carriage and ran upon the outer rails. I counted twenty such bulbous carriages before the perspective got the better of my eyesight.
‘But what kind of engine can pull such a train?’ I asked of my companion.
‘No engine as such,’ he said. ‘Or rather engines of flesh and blood. Come.’
We strode along the platform. The carriages closest to the entrance were the first-class staterooms and private berths; then came the second-class carriages - through barred openings I made out two-tier bunks on either side of a central passage. The six carriages at the very front of the train were third-class: each narrow compartment consisted of four-tier timber bunks, rude and unpadded. I was aware of a foul stench, and assumed that it issued from these lowly carriages - before Blackman touched my arm and pointed ahead.
‘The vench,’ he said.
Perched upon the empty rails which emerged from the cover of the station were perhaps two dozen huge birds - then I looked again and saw that they were not birds at all, but some scythe-beaked, sweep-winged creatures less avian than saurian. They stood perhaps three metres tall - and when one beast creakily unfolded its wings I judged their span to be of some ten metres - and they put me in mind of nothing so much as prehistoric pterodactyls. Each vench was chained by its right leg, and each chain was attached to the forward carriage of the train. The stench that attended these creatures came from the prodigious droppings piled beneath the makeshift perch.
‘This team of vench will take us as far as the third station, some two hundred kilometres inland,’ Blackman informed me. ‘Then a fresh team will take over.’
I stared at the creatures, which were stropping their bills on the tracks and giving vent to eerie, high-pitched caws of impatience.
‘On Earth,’ I said, ‘we have fusion-powered trains. The journey would take but two or three hours.’
Blackman smiled, tolerantly. ‘Tartarus is not Earth,’ he said. ‘The planet has been governed by the Church for nigh on a thousand years. Early on they proscribed all devices mechanical, deeming them unnecessary to the well-being of the people. The only machines on the planet are in the employ of the Church itself.’
I considered mentioning the hypocrisy of this, but decided to hold my tongue. For all I knew, Blackman might have been a believer.
We walked back along the platform to our carriage. I was about to climb the steps which ascended to the stateroom when Blackman touched my arm. ‘Look who joins us.’
I turned and followed his gaze. Crossing the platform towards the train were two men hauling a large chest between them. Something in the shape and demeanour of the taller of the two was familiar - and of course I recognised the chest from the alleyway.
I stared at Blackman. ‘You knew?’
‘Simplicity itself. There is an illegal but growing trade in Messengers. Criminals from the next province along the track pay well for them as pets, and worse.’
‘Messengers?’
‘The winged faerie creature captured by these two villains.’
‘Are they human?’ I asked.
‘Who? The villains or the Messengers?’ Blackman laughed. ‘I suggest that the kidnappers are less than human - the Messengers more than. They are a race of beings genetically engineered many millennia ago, and have little truck with regular humans.’
I wanted to ask Blackman if he belonged to a similar, engineered race - but at that moment my attention returned to the kidnappers. I had noted a familiarity in the taller figure, and now I realised it was not merely through seeing his silhouette in the alley one hour ago. As the two men passed us, staggering with their burden, I gave a strangled cry.
‘Buzatti!’ I murmured to myself, and then, ‘I know him. Or rather I’ve met him briefly.’
As the two men bundled the trunk up the steps of the neighbouring carriage, I told Blackman of my foolishness the day before.
‘So as well as effecting the release of the hapless Messenger,’ he said, ‘we must also reimburse you to the tune of some ten thousand new credits.’
Having stowed away their treasure, the two men emerged and stood on the platform. They shook hands, payment was exchanged, and the shorter villain took his leave. Buzatti returned to his carriage.
There was a bustle of activity along the platform as a uniformed official swung a lantern and yelled an incomprehensible cry. The passengers hurried to their respective carriages and doors slammed shut. I followed Blackman up the steps. Our chamber occupied half the carriage, with a lounge on one side and a room containing two beds on the other. Blackman indicated a flight of steps, and I followed him to a railed area on the roof of the carriage.
Ahead, the vench were relinquishing their perches on the rails and flapping with lazy grace into the air. The chains attached to their legs pulled taut, and a tremendous jolt passed through the carriages. Slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, the train left the station and trundled on raised tracks above the streets of Baudelaire. Silhouetted against the orange light of night, the vench presented a stirring sight. They flew in layered formations affected by the length of the chains that connected them to the train. The first arrow-head flight of eight was perhaps just thirty metres from, and level with, the forward carriage. Above them, and twenty metres in front, were yet eight more prehistoric creatures - and above and beyond them a further eight, their wings working in vast, slow-motion sweeps. From time to time one of their number called out a high, piercing cry.
We remained upon the upper deck for an hour, as the train left the outskirts of the city and plunged into the jungle, the vegetation dark beneath the fiery sky.
Midnight arrived, and the events of the day caught up with me. I said good night to Blackman and made my way to the bed-chamber. I took a shower in a crude cubicle in the corner, and then retired. I was almost asleep when Blackman entered the room and sat on his bed. From a vial he took a pill and swallowed it dry, then lay down fully clothed. Within seconds he was asleep, his breathing even.
Despite the drumming of the wheels, I too soon fell asleep. I was awoken only once, by a red glow that emanated from across the room. I opened my eyes and blinked at what I saw. Blackman sat cross-legged on the floor next to his bed. Leads cascaded from the slits in the back of his jerkin, and were attached to a small black box he held on the palm of his right hand. Where before the wires that covered his body had been silver, now they glowed red like heating filaments and surrounded him with a roseate aura. He sat like this for a long time. At last I fell asleep again, and might have dreamed the episode.
* * * *
Bright sunlight filled the chamber when I awoke the following morning. Blackman was not upon his bed, nor was there any sign of his black box or leads. I dressed and stepped into the empty lounge.
As I climbed the narrow flight of stairs leading to the top of the carriage, I was hit by the intense heat of the sun directly overhead. Evidently I had slept till midday. A railed walkway connected each carriage, and the fifth carriage along was covered by a large white awning, in the shade of which travellers sat around a dozen tables. I noticed Blackman at a table by himself, a drink and a plate of food before him. At the sight of this I realised how hungry I was. I made my way along the swaying aisle, holding the rails with both hands. We were travelling at a fair speed along a section of track high above the surrounding tree-tops. For as far as the eye could see in every direction the jungle rolled away like a vast green ocean.
I entered the welcome shade of the dining carriage and joined my travelling companion. He was eating a plate of bread and sectioned fruit and drinking iced tea. ‘Sinclair, you’re up at last. I trust you slept well?’
‘Well, but too long. I feel heavy-headed.’
Blackman laughed. ‘A meal will see you right. Waiter!’ he called, and a red-jacketed steward hurried over with a menu. I indicated my friend’s plate and ordered the same.
I sat back and scanned my fellow diners. They appeared well-dressed and dignified, with the privileged air of the upper classes. There were several couples taking lunch beneath the awning, and a group of men playing a board game at a corner table.
‘No sign of Buzatti,’ I whispered, ‘or whatever his name might be.’
‘He breakfasted earlier. I exchanged pleasantries with him. His story is that he is a traveller in exotic merchandise, which I suppose is true enough. He is heading for San Sebastian, two days away, and is still using the nom de guerre of Buzatti.’
My meal arrived, and I sampled the strange local fruits. As I did so I considered what I had seen in the early hours, and thought of questioning Blackman. I decided against it; although companionable enough, he seemed reluctant to discuss personal details.
After the meal, he suggested a stroll to the front of the train, and despite the heat I agreed. Every fifth carriage was covered by an awning, and in these oases of shade I paused to regain my breath while Blackman, seeming to relish the heat, stood beyond the awning with his charred face tipped towards the sun.
We arrived at the very first carriage, which thankfully sported a canvas cover. Ahead, the three formations of vench were dark, leathery shapes against the blue sky. We were trundling along high above the jungle, our passage agitating flocks of birds which rose from their tree-top nests in whirlpools of multi-coloured plumage.
Blackman pointed across the jungle to our right. ‘Observe the towers protruding through the canopy - and there are more.’
I made out tall, dark spires and minarets. ‘A city?’ I asked.
‘Once, a long time ago. Those are the remains of a temple complex built by the alien race native to Tartarus aeons past. The Slarque became extinct long before the first human exploration ship discovered the planet.’
In silence we observed the passing scene for a further fifteen minutes. I marvelled at the miracle of finding myself here, on a strange world in a sector of galaxy so far from Earth. I considered the amazing fact that six years ago my father had passed this way, on a rendezvous with destiny.
Blackman laid a hand upon my arm, his touch as dry as embers. ‘Don’t look now, but our friend takes the air on the next shaded carriage. Excuse me while I further gain his confidence.’
He stepped from the shade and strode along the jolting walkway, to where a white-suited Buzatti gazed out across the jungle. I made myself comfortable against the rail and turned my attention to the view ahead. Beyond the labouring vench, on the far horizon, I made out a hazy line of mountains, their snow-covered peaks appearing to float above the surrounding cloud like icebergs in an ocean. This range, I knew from studying the map at the hotel, overlooked the vast, inland Sapphire sea; Charybdis clung to the foothills on the far slope of these mountains, a sprawling town straddling the river Laurent.
Later, after Buzatti had departed, I joined my friend. He stood in the sunlight before the awning, while I sat on the rail in the shade.
‘Did you learn any more?’ I asked.
‘I suspect that he told me nothing but lies. I’m meeting him for a drink on the dining carriage at sunset. I need to gain his trust before I make my move.’
‘To save the Messenger? What have you planned?’
‘As yet . . . nothing. We have two days to act before Buzatti reaches his destination - time enough and more.’ He closed his eyes and lifted his face to the sun.
I left him to it, returned to the dining carriage and ordered iced tea. For the next hour or two I admired the view, observed my fellow passengers and read a news-sheet printed in Baudelaire - the novelty of actually reading news on paper spoilt by having to wrestle with the over-sized pages which flapped like sails in the breeze.
We took a late lunch together, consisting of black bread, ripe yellow cheese and a salad drenched in spiced oil, washed down with a strong red wine as thick as syrup. After two glasses of the stuff my head was spinning. I felt the urge to talk.
I gestured expansively at the passing jungle. ‘A little over a month ago I graduated from university, after two years studying Twenty-second-Century Renaissance art. Just a week ago I set sail for Tartarus.’
Blackman smiled indulgently, contemplating his glass. ‘What of your parents? What did they say when you announced your plans?’
‘My mother is dead,’ I said.
‘And your father?’
‘He too.’ I sought to check my tongue with a long draught of wine. I wanted to explain my mission on Tartarus, but I found myself unable to do so without declaring my innermost emotions to someone who was, after all, no more than a stranger.
‘Were you close?’
‘To my mother, yes.’ I shrugged. ‘We were together until I was fourteen and left for university. To my father . . .’
I hesitated. It seemed not quite right to admit to Blackman that I hated my father.
‘My father left when I was six,’ I said, ‘and never came back. I remember very little of him - but what little I do recall, and what I’ve learned about him since . . . lead me to believe that we would never have seen eye to eye.’
I changed the subject. ‘And you?’ I asked. ‘Do you have a family?’
‘The nature of my existence precludes attachment,’ he said, as if to discourage further enquiry.
I ventured, ‘You mentioned that you were going to Charybdis to work?’
‘That is correct,’ he said. ‘I will act as the eyes of a ship in the annual race.’
‘The eyes?’
‘The underwater hazards of the river change from year to year. A ship needs a Blackman to plot a safe course.’
I nodded to myself. I wanted to know how long the Guild of Blackmen had been serving as the eyes of the ships, and if my travelling companion might know anything about the fate of my father. I wondered, paradoxically, if the reason I did not question Blackman then was that I was secretly afraid to learn conclusively that my father was indeed dead.
I finished my wine. It was late afternoon; the sun hung above the jungle horizon, one hour from setting. As I did not want to be around when Buzatti returned for his rendezvous with Blackman, I excused myself, stumbled back to the stateroom and slept.
The sun had set by the time I awoke, and the orange glow of the night sky filled the chamber. I took the persona-cube from my travelling bag and activated it. An electric blue glow filled the room. The miniature representation of my father was in a gym, dealing swift jabs to a hovering punchbag. I watched him, saying nothing, as he put all his strength into the punches and grunted with each thrust. Often, in my early years, I had watched him for hours in his world within the cube, almost content with this substitute father figure. When I was seven or eight, a part of me - that part which could not come to terms with his abandonment - began to confide in him, tell him my worries and problems, hopes and fears. In return, like a true father, he had given advice and encouragement, praise, and, naturally, criticism and reproof. Consequently, I had grown up with the fixation that the personality within the cube was a bona fide, independent intelligence, even though I knew in my heart that it was nothing more than a fake, a clever, programmed copy. The result was that even now I could not interface with my father’s persona without feeling something for the ridiculous little figure locked within the cube; longing, resentment, a gut feeling that might have been love, and of course the burning pain of hatred.
I felt hatred now as I watched him pummel the punchbag.
‘Father.’
He caught the swinging bag, winked at me. ‘Sinclair. Still on Tartarus?’
‘Of course. Did you think I’d turn back, go home?’
‘It’s a tough planet. You’re not exactly—’
I interrupted. ‘I found out what happened to you,’ I said.
He gave the bag one last, almost friendly punch and walked away from it, mopping the sweat from his face with a towel. ‘Yeah? So, what happened?’
‘You died.’ I stared at him, wondering how he might react. Would the programme be concerned for the welfare of his real self, or did he consider his original as nothing more than a stranger?
He nodded. ‘In battle?’ he asked at last.
‘No . . .’ I said, and told him about the Charybdis race. I added, ‘I also found out something else.’
‘Go on.’
‘Before the race, you renounced your life as a soldier. You wanted to make amends, gain absolution.’
He just stared at me, as if suspicious. ‘Absolution?’
I told him what the old lawyer had told me, about the boy who was killed, my father’s defection from the private army, his desire to take part in the Charybdis race.
I finished, ‘By your actions, you admitted that you’d been wrong all along, that your beliefs counted for nothing. You as good as admitted that your life had been a mistake—’
His response enraged me. He laughed, as if unconcerned. ‘Hey, Sinclair - you’ve only got that lawyer’s word on what happened. For that matter, I’ve only got your goddamned word!’
I stared at him as he returned to the punchbag and resumed torturing it with swift, sharp jabs.
‘Don’t you feel anything?’ I said, anger seething inside me. ‘Can’t I hurt you?’
He chose to ignore me, concentrated on the hovering bag.
Then I whispered, ‘But I think I’d hurt you if I turned you off. I mean for good, wiped your cube clean.’
He caught the bag. ‘You wouldn’t dare switch me off,’ he said, grinning out at me, ‘because, Sinclair, I’m all you’ve got.’
Quickly, unable to bear the look of triumph on his face, I deactivated the cube. The glow died, leaving me alone in the burnt orange light of the Tartarean night. I lay in silence for a long, long time, considering what he had said.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs from the deck above. Blackman stepped into the room, stooping to avoid the low lintel.
I sat up. ‘How did it go?’
‘He drank his fill and more, told me that it was an honour to drink with a Blackman. We’ll see whether he still thinks the same tomorrow.’
‘We’ll rescue the Messenger then?’
‘Tomorrow evening at this time the Messenger will be free.’ He sat down on his bed and looked across at me. ‘Is something wrong?’
I gave a short laugh that contained no humour, just bitterness and self-pity. I activated the cube and threw it over to him. He caught it, turned it the right way up. He stared at the tiny, ridiculous figure boxing within the cube, then glanced across at me.
I surprised myself by saying, ‘I came to Tartarus to find out how my father died.’
Then I told Blackman all about my father and his profession, his volte face and his decision to join the boat race.
Blackman was silent for a while, staring into the cube which he held in his hands between his knees. ‘If he took part in the race,’ he said, ‘then there will be records in the race museum of St Benedict’s island, off Charybdis in the Sapphire sea. You should go there when we arrive.’
He returned the cube to me.
‘And in the meantime, if I were you I’d try not to hate your father so.’
‘That’s easy for you to say!’
He shrugged. ‘You hate what your father was, very well. But you told me that he was brought up on Marathon, in a Spartan fighting college.’
‘So?’ I said. ‘I don’t see—’
‘Your father was a product of his conditioning,’ he said, ‘and because of that he should be pitied.’
I made no reply. Blackman lay on his bed, as unmoving in the orange twilight as the bas-relief of a knight on some sarcophagus.
That night I woke to find my travelling companion consumed in a familiar crimson glow. ‘Blackman,’ I whispered, sitting up in bed.
From his seated, cross-legged position, he said, ‘Do not be alarmed, Sinclair.’ He did not take his gaze off the black box he held before his face.
‘What are you doing?’
It was a second before he replied. ‘I am charging myself for the task ahead. Now, sleep.’
And as if I were under hypnosis, I lay down at his command and slept.
* * * *
I awoke late again - something in the heat and the lulling motion of the train promoting sleep - and it was mid-afternoon by the time I took my place beneath the shade of the dining cart. I ordered a long, refreshing fruit juice and watched the ingenious means by which the train pulled into the station platform.
A hundred metres before the stop, a cart appeared on the tracks ahead, pedalled by six labourers and pulling a long trailer filled with grain for the vench. Sighting the cart, the creatures descended, alighted on the trailer and devoured the food. Robbed of motive power, the train rolled slowly to a halt before the station. Immediately the noisy business of boarding and alighting, and stocking the train with provisions, began.
The station served a small township situated in a clearing in the jungle, white-painted buildings set out along streets in a grid pattern. Down below, new passengers supervised the prolonged loading of their goods, trunks and boxes hauled aboard by toiling, bare-chested porters. A hundred vendors swarmed along the platform, selling goods through the barred windows of the carriages and shouting up to the passengers on the top deck. I ignored all offers of food, wooden carvings and bangles.
One hour later the grain cart was shunted onto a tangential stretch of track. One by one the vench took to the air. The train, slowly at first and with much straining and creaking, rolled from the station. Ahead, the impressive range of the central mountains, still two days away, rose jagged against the clear blue sky.
Blackman appeared and joined me, slipping into the opposite seat. ‘Sinclair,’ he said. ‘Tonight we act.’
‘The Messenger?’ I asked, my pulse racing.
He nodded. ‘At sunset, Buzatti and I will begin our grand binge.’
‘And then?’
He held out his hand, on the blackened palm of which was a small white pill. It rolled into his fingers, and I half expected to see it covered in soot. ‘The sedative I take nightly,’ he informed me. ‘Introduced into Buzatti’s ale, it will induce a long, deep sleep.’
‘Then we enter his chamber and liberate the Messenger?’ I said. ‘But what of Buzatti - he’ll naturally suspect you when he finds her gone.’
Blackman waved aside this trivial detail. ‘Leave that to me. What I want you to do is simple: return here at midnight, and bring my travelling bag with you.’
‘What do you plan—?’
But my question was halted by the arrival, at the tables around us, of a dozen passengers come for their evening meal.
‘I’ll apprise you of my plans at midnight,’ Blackman said. ‘Now, how about dinner?’
We ordered boiled fish and salad, with a carafe of the wine we had enjoyed last night. The fish when it arrived was the length of my arm, included a ferocious-looking headpiece, and was sweet and succulent to the taste.
We ate and watched the sun drop towards the horizon. The sky turned red, then mellowed to orange. As the sun dipped finally over the jungle horizon, it flung back fiery bolts of illumination in a display that seemed especially contrived for our benefit. Tropical birds gave vent to continuous song, left their nests and wheeled in silhouette against the sun’s posthumous glory.
After the meal, Blackman excused himself and moved to an empty table. I was about to take my leave, so as to avoid Buzatti, when the man himself emerged from below. He was outfitted in an elegant, off-white suit and a pastel-pink cravat. He carried a swagger stick, and it was this, as he strolled into the dining area and took his place across from Blackman with a loud greeting, which emphasised his arrogance. He was revelling in the attention he was attracting as the guest of a Blackman, and so did not see me as I slipped from the dining carriage and made for the stateroom.
I lay on my bed and thought about summoning the image of my father, wondering if this time I might initiate a dialogue that would be other than rancorous and mutually hostile, if I might detect in his simulated personality some scintilla of humanity. I told myself that I was drunk, and stared instead through the window at the passing jungle.
At a quarter to twelve I could wait no longer. Blackman’s travelling bag stood at the end of his bed; although no larger than mine, it was three times as heavy. I had to use both hands to drag it from the bed-chamber and up the steps. The light in the sky had dimmed, though there was still sufficient illumination to make out the figures of Blackman and Buzatti seated at their table five coaches ahead. I proceeded carefully along the swaying walkway, sweating in the rank night-time humidity. When I reached the dining carriage I saw that one other drinker was present, an old man staring morosely into his beer at a corner table. I seated myself at a table behind my friend and Buzatti, and prepared to wait for the other traveller to drink up and retire.
Buzatti was slumped against the enclosing rail of the carriage, silent and unmoving. If he were still conscious, he was giving a fine performance as a comatose drunkard. For the benefit of the third party, Blackman was speaking. I heard Buzatti reply, his words slurred beyond comprehension.
Just as I was beginning to think that the old man might remain seated all night, he drained his glass, nodded to Blackman and myself, and moved off down the walkway. Blackman beckoned me over.
‘I’d like to introduce you to someone, Buzatti,’ my friend said. ‘Meet Sinclair Singer - though you might have met him before.’
Buzatti tried to focus on me. His cravat was askew and he was drooling down his chin. At last his eyes registered something. He sat back with shock, the combination of ale and sedative giving the movement an aspect of pantomime alarm. ‘You . . .’
‘So you recognise my friend,’ Blackman said. ‘Perhaps you recall the circumstances in which you first made his acquaintance?’
A flicker of fear showed in the con-man’s eyes.
‘Sinclair, I think you’ll find Mr Buzatti’s credit chip in his left jacket pocket.’
I dipped my hand into the pocket and sure enough came out with the chip. I coupled it with mine and transferred ten thousand new credits, gladly restoring my finances. Watching me, the drug inhibiting stronger protest, Buzatti let out a strangled splutter.
‘Sinclair, search him for the key to his cabin.’
I returned his credit chip, then located a wooden key in an inside pocket. The con-man tried to resist my search, but he was hardly able to move in his seat.
‘Open my bag,’ Blackman said. ‘You’ll find two metal spars inside.’
I did as instructed. The spars were heavy silver bars more like ingots, a dozen jacks projecting from each one. I passed them to Blackman, still without knowing what he intended.
My friend reached behind him and snapped the first spar, then the second, into the socket arrangement I had seen implanted in his back the night before. Instantly, a shimmering jet black membrane sprang up from each shoulder, like a sheet of oil in the shape of delta-wings. He flexed the wings experimentally, lifting himself a matter of centimetres above the deck.
‘Now go and free the Messenger,’ Blackman instructed. ‘Take her to our quarters and see that she is rested.’
He seized Buzatti under his arms, hefting the slumped con-man until satisfied that his grip was secure. Buzatti put up a feeble struggle and mouthed slurred protests.
‘Where are you taking him?’ I asked.
‘Don’t worry - a long way from here.’
‘But if he gets word to his accomplices that it was we who saved the Messenger—’
‘Sinclair, stop your gibbering. He will get word to no one. Trust me.’
And so saying, he rose into the air, his midnight wings a blur behind him, Buzatti hanging from his grasp with a look of terror on his face. Blackman hovered away from the dining carriage, out over the darkened jungle. I rushed to the rail and leaned over. Against the orange light of the sky, my friend and the dependent con-man made a bizarre silhouette indeed. I watched them head out over the jungle and recede into the distance until they were no more than a tiny speck that might have been a bird.
I recalled that I had my own duties to perform. I picked up Blackman’s bag, thankfully much lightened now, and quickly returned it to our cabin. Then I made my way to Buzatti’s stateroom and fumbled in the semi-darkness of the stairwell until I located the keyhole. My heart pounding, I turned the key and pushed open the door. The lounge was illuminated by the orange light streaming in through the low window; there was no sign of the Messenger in this room. I crossed to the bed-chamber and flung open the door. The room was in darkness. I opened the shutters on the window and turned, expecting to behold the diminutive Messenger revealed in the sudden wash of light. This room, too, was empty. I returned to the lounge in a quandary.
Then I saw the trunk.
‘No!’ I gasped. Surely he had not kept the girl incarcerated all this time? I dropped to my knees before the trunk and knocked upon its polished timber lid. ‘Hello? Are you still . . .’ Realising the foolishness of the question, I looked about for the key - as if Buzatti would keep it in view! I found no key, but I did see the long iron spar used to lodge open the window. I grabbed it and set to work prising open the thick metal hasps. At last the final lock sprang open and, tentatively, I eased back the lid and peered inside, a little apprehensive as to the state of the Messenger. All I could make out was a grey mass of crumpled wings, and then, through this diaphanous membrane, the curled shape of the girl beneath.
Hardly knowing how to proceed, lest I inadvertently damage her wings still further, I eased my hands down the side of the trunk, coaxing out the dry, gossamer-light material. Soon they overflowed the trunk, limp and pathetic, and at last I revealed their owner. To my relief she was breathing, though unconscious, her tiny ribcage rising and falling. I slipped my arms beneath her neck and knees and lifted.
She came free of the chest as light as a bundle of clothes.
She gave a small, mewling cry, and began to struggle feebly. She hit out at me, beating my chest with tiny fists. I was forced to lower her to the floor, in case she damaged her wings. She stood weakly, dressed in leggings and a trim yellow jacket.
Tears streaked her pale, elfin face. ‘Leave me alone! What do you want!’
‘I’ve come to save you - take you away from the man who kidnapped you in Baudelaire. I’m taking you to the cabin I share with a member of the Guild of Blackmen.’
She was terribly weakened; even as I spoke, her knees gave way. I caught her again, lifted her into my arms.
‘A Blackman?’ she whispered up at me. ‘You travel with a Blackman?’
‘Quiet now,’ I said.
Her eyes fluttered shut. Mindful of her trailing, crumpled wings, I carried her through the door and up the steps. I negotiated the walkway, thankful that the Messenger was as light as she was, and descended to the stateroom. Once inside I kicked open the door to the bed-chamber, crossed to my bed and laid the Messenger down on her stomach.
I fetched a cup of water from the lounge. Awkwardly, she lifted her head and I held the cup to her lips. She drank thirstily, paused to gasp for breath, then drained the cup. Her head collapsed onto the pillow and her eyes closed. I set about arranging her wings on either side of the bed, attempting gingerly to straighten out their kinks and folds. To my surprise they were not torn; the damage sustained was to the veins that threaded the membranes like the lead of a stained glass window, several sections bent and bruised. The wings rustled dryly at my touch like fine silk, and once or twice, when I was not as gentle as I should have been, my clumsiness communicated pain and caused her to twitch in her sleep.
There was little else for me to do, then, but sit beside her and wait until she regained consciousness. In the light slanting through the window, she seemed like something from a fairytale, a slight and beauteous creature that did not belong in this coarse world. In the sky above the rooftops of Baudelaire, I had not truly appreciated her diminutive stature. She was little more than a metre tall, with a correspondingly tiny frame, short fair hair and a thin, pointed face. Her beauty had that strange alluring quality on the borderline of ugliness, a refinement of feature that was at first glance alien, and then, only on closer inspection, human.
Twice during the next hour she stirred from sleep. The first time, disoriented, she thrashed her wings and tried to push herself onto all fours. I held her shoulders and eased her back to the bed. ‘Be calm,’ I soothed. ‘All is well. You’re safe now. Try to sleep.’
She calmed down, lay her head on the pillow and slept fitfully. Later she jerked awake again, as if frightened in a dream. Her eyes seemed to focus on me with difficulty. ‘Who are you?’ she asked.
I knelt beside her and took her hand. ‘Don’t be afraid. You’re safe now. You’re free.’
She nodded, and then managed, ‘Thirsty.’
She raised her head as I tipped the cup to her lips. She was asleep within seconds.
I was on the verge of sleep myself when I heard footsteps on the stairs. By the time I’d struggled into a sitting position, Blackman was ducking into the room. He held his wing-spars in his hand.
I rubbed my eyes. ‘Buzatti?’ I asked.
‘He won’t be bothering us for quite some time,’ Blackman said. ‘I deposited him in the wilds, two days from the nearest township and sail-rail station.’ He leaned over the girl, his hands lodged on his knees. The contrast between the giant Blackman, whose dark figure seemed to fill the room, and the wraith-like Messenger on the bed, struck me as almost comic.
‘How is she?’
‘As well as can be expected,’ I said. ‘She was still in the trunk.’
He inspected her wings. ‘There seems to be no lasting damage, no thanks to Buzatti. I’ll let you get back to sleep. I’ll be in the lounge if you need me.’
He stepped from the room and closed the door behind him. I turned my attention to the girl on the bed, until I could stay awake no longer and joined her in sleep.
* * * *
When I awoke the following morning - or rather at midday, as ever - it was some seconds before my brain reacquainted itself with the events of the night before. I turned over and beheld the Messenger with the shock of renewed appreciation.
She was watching me with an expression of timid gratitude.
I sat up. ‘Sleep well?’
She blew out her cheeks. ‘I suppose so - at least, better than the previous night. I ache in every bone of my body, and my wings . . .’
She moved herself onto all fours and tenderly tested her great dragonfly membranes: the left vane was upright and alert; the right one hung forlorn. She was frowning. ‘I should be thankful they weren’t ripped to shreds. He kept me in the box for hours.’ She looked suddenly afraid. ‘But where is my captor?’
‘Kilometres away, and no danger to us any more,’ I reassured her. ‘My name is Sinclair.’
‘I’m Loi, and thank you for saving my life.’ She winced in pain as, from all fours, she manoeuvred herself into a cross-legged sitting position, facing me with her wings arranged along the bed. Fully extended, her wing-span filled the length of the bed-chamber.
‘I didn’t do it alone,’ I admitted.
She paused in the process of massaging an arm, glanced up at me. ‘Was I dreaming last night, or did you say that you were in league with a Blackman?’
‘You weren’t dreaming. I am travelling with a Blackman. He took care of your abductor while I brought you here.’
I stopped at the sight of her expression. She was staring at me with wide eyes. ‘You are honoured indeed. The Guild of Blackmen are even more insular than my own Guild. It is very rare that they mix.’
I shrugged and told her how it was that we had come to meet in the back alley in Baudelaire. ‘I wanted to do something there and then to rescue you, but Blackman counselled patience. It is because of you that we met.’
‘Well, Sinclair,’ Loi pronounced with prim fastidiousness, ‘pleased as I am that you and Blackman became travelling companions, all in all I would rather have remained at liberty.’
Our dialogue was interrupted by a knock on the door. Blackman stepped through, carrying a tray of food. ‘Breakfast,’ he announced.
His appearance had a sudden and startling effect on Loi. She fell forward on her face, arms outstretched as if in supplication. ‘Blackman!’ she intoned.
‘Okay, little one - no need for such drama. Get up.’
As if fearing his wrath, Loi resumed her cross-legged position.
He laid the tray on the bed before her. ‘Fruit, bread and cheese enough for you both. And a canteen of iced tea. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll take a stroll.’
He ducked awkwardly from the room, the startled Messenger watching him all the way. As the door closed behind him, she turned to me with wide eyes. ‘But he’s all in black,’ she whispered.
‘I had noticed.’
‘But you have no idea what that means?’
‘To be truthful, I know very little about him. He says nothing of his past, and very little of his plans for the future.’
‘So you know nothing of him individually, or of his Guild in general?’
‘I arrived on Tartarus from Earth four days ago,’ I said. ‘I confess that I find your planet full of mystery.’
She was shaking her head. ‘Then where to begin?’
‘First,’ I suggested, ‘how about breakfast?’
I fell to eating the bread and cheese, and Loi joined me. As she ate, she told me about the Guild of Blackmen.
‘Unlike most of the Guilds, which are independent,’ she said, ‘the Guild of Blackmen work for the Church, even though for centuries the Church has proscribed the use of technology. They have one set of standards for themselves, and another for the rest of us.’
I recalled something I had wondered earlier. ‘Are the Blackmen a race, such as yourself, or are they ... I can think of no other word . . . manufactured?’
‘They are not a race - they date back a hundred years, no more. We Messengers are almost as old as the colonisation of the planet, which dates back thousands of years.’
‘So they are manufactured?’
She frowned. ‘Well, they are normal human beings to begin with, but then they are changed, augmented. They undergo neurological operations, numerous implants - they are wired to give them strength, and much more.’
‘Who are they? Who can become Blackmen?’
‘Oh, all kinds of people. I don’t know how they are selected, but I’ve heard that poets and scholars have been initiated, philosophers and great teachers, as well as criminals, murderers and madmen - but all this is conjecture. You see, they are programmed not to reveal their pasts. They find it impossible to talk of what they were in their previous lives. When they are initiated, what they were before ceases to have any relevance - only what they are now matters. The Blackmen are often sent to arbitrate disputes in the outlying and inaccessible areas on Tartarus, broker peace deals, settle enmities and the like. Perhaps the Church in its wisdom thinks that people with no pasts will be seen as being without prejudice and preference.’
‘What kind of jobs do they do, other than enforce the law?’
‘Many are surveyors. They can fly, and can reach altitudes where Messengers would burn up. Tartarus does not have satellites; it has Blackmen instead.’
‘Does this account for their appearance? They fly too close to the sun?’
Loi laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. ‘Oh, no! Of course not! They are made that way to protect them from the sun. Many are surveyors who must cross the vast deserts of the northern continent. They must withstand the withering heat of the day, and the intense cold of the night. Others are troubleshooters, explorers, experts in a thousand fields. They are a hundred per cent efficient at all times, and fail in their duties only when problematic factors weigh against them. Because of their excellence, therefore, their lifespans are short. It is as if they must pay for their supreme ability with the penance of burn-out.’
I stared at her. ‘How short?’ I whispered.
‘Some last for three years, others five or six. But it is said that in that time they experience such heightened perception, are programmed with such knowledge beyond the understanding of us mere mortals, that the lack of longevity is no sacrifice at all.’
I said, ‘I see why you revered Blackman just now.’
The Messenger nodded, licking her fingers. ‘Him especially,’ she said.
I looked up. ‘Especially?’
She smiled and laid her head on her shoulder. ‘Because, as I said earlier, he is garbed in black. Others wear leathers of blue or green or red, denoting their specialisation. Black leathers denote a Blackman at the end of his lifespan, on a kind of pilgrimage to perform one last task of his choice.’
I laid down my teacup, a sensation like a ball of ice weighing heavy in my stomach. ‘My friend,’ I began, ‘. . . he is going to the race at Charybdis, to serve as the eyes of a ship.’
The Messenger nodded. ‘A noble finale,’ she said. ‘In fact, none finer, to end one’s life helping to save the lives of others.’
‘How . . . how will he die?’ I managed at last.
‘I cannot say. Only the Blackman himself knows that.’ Loi reached out and touched my hand. ‘This is the duty of the Blackmen. He knew his fate when he was initiated. He would have it no other way.’
After the meal I left Loi to shower herself, and slipped from the stateroom. I found Blackman on the deck of a central carriage. He stood in the merciless light of the sun, his head tipped back and his eyes closed. There was an expression approaching rapture on his wire-graphed face. I remained in the shade of a nearby canopy.
‘Blackman,’ I murmured.
‘Sinclair.’ He did not move his head or open his eyes. ‘How is the Messenger?’
‘She seems to be doing well,’ I said. I hesitated. ‘She told me about you . . . about the significance of your leathers.’
He looked at me then, and smiled. ‘A carafe of red wine would go down very nicely,’ he said.
We returned along the walkway and sat at a table beside the rail. The waiter placed a carafe and two glasses between us.
‘How can you?’ I said. ‘How can you contemplate your death and still remain sane?’
Blackman carefully poured two measures of the thick red syrup. ‘Please believe me, the benefits of being a Blackman far outweigh the fact of my premature demise. For years I have had access to more knowledge than you would dream possible. I seem to have lived several times over. Now, my systems are failing. I can feel myself weakening. I must charge myself nightly, not every month as once it was. I am soon to die, but I have prepared for the eventuality. Don’t be horrified. You are young - you cannot hope to understand what I have gone through.’
I regarded him in silence as he stared off into the distance. We had left the jungle behind and were passing through cultivated fields, a bright patchwork of yellows and greens stretching for as far as the eye could see beneath the glare of the sun. Ahead, the central mountains rose sheer and majestic from the rolling ramparts of the foothills.
‘When?’ I asked at last. ‘How will you . . . die?’
He nodded, as if he found my question perfectly acceptable. ‘When the race is over and I have discharged my obligations as the eyes of a ship, I will join others of my Guild in an aerial ceremony, a celebration for the winning Captain. During this flight I will expire, to make room for a new initiate to the Guild, which is how it should be.’
‘Couldn’t you just . . .’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t know - retire? Have your systems stripped, become once more just . . . human?’
Blackman laughed at me, but gently. ‘Sinclair, I am my systems. Without them, there would be no human left. I’m sorry that this news has shocked you - but please be present when I fly with the Guild at the ceremony. I think the beauty of it might assure you of my acceptance.’
I wanted to tell him that I could not accept such assurances, that I would not stand by and calmly watch his expiration, but I realised - even as these thoughts were passing through my head - how selfish I was being. I was not mourning Blackman’s loss of life, of course, but my loss of a friend.
I lifted my glass. ‘To the ceremony,’ I pronounced, a quaver in my voice.
That night we had dinner in the stateroom. After the meal, Loi knelt on the settee, radiant in the orange light of the setting sun. Her right wing, so desolate this morning, had gained animation during the day and was now as pert as its partner. She tested them, articulating the great diaphanous spans as best she could in the confines of the lounge. She turned them this way and that, swept them up and down, stirring the warm air.
‘My wings are almost mended,’ Loi pronounced. ‘Tomorrow they shall be as good as new. At first light I will take my leave.’
Coming as it did so soon after news of Blackman’s more final exit, Loi’s imminent departure saddened me. ‘Back to Baudelaire?’ I asked.
She shook her head, frowning as she rotated her left wing. ‘To Charybdis. I am signed on as the Messenger for Shipmaster Sigmund Gastarian’s boat, the Golden Swan.’
‘You’ll take part in the race?’ I asked.
‘Yes and no. I will be flying above the Golden Swan. Should the ship run into trouble, it is my duty to report to race officials.’
‘Then I’ll be cheering for you and Gastarian all the way.’
‘If I were you I’d place a wager on the Swan. Gastarian is a fine Shipmaster, and one of the favourites to take the race.’ She paused there, a sly look stealing over her features as her eyes slid from me to Blackman. ‘I don’t suppose, Blackman, sir, that you would consider . . . ?’
He smiled. ‘What is it, child?’
‘Well, what a cheek I have. After all, you did save my life, and here I am asking favours.’
‘Out with it!’
‘Very well! Could you possibly see your way to acting as the eyes for the Golden Swan?’ And she hunched her shoulders and winced, as if expecting Blackman’s negative reply to be as painful as a slap.
‘Mmm,’ Blackman said, stretching out in his chair and lacing his fingers behind his head. ‘An interesting proposition. I don’t see why I should favour the Swan—’
Loi pulled a face at me.
‘But then again, I don’t see why I shouldn’t. I will make my decision when I’ve spoken to your master and inspected the boat.’
‘Magnifico!’ She clapped her hands, then turned to me. ‘And you, Sinclair. Would you care to sign aboard as a member of the crew?’
‘Me?’ I spluttered. ‘But I know nothing about sailing!’
‘You don’t need to. The main work is done by the eyes and the Shipmaster. The crew are ballast, and hard to find at that.’
‘I’m not surprised! We lowly humans dislike being dashed to death on rocks, ripped to shreds on coral, or even drowned.’
‘But the Swan’s a fine ship, and Gastarian a fine master. There is no danger of an accident, especially if Blackman sights for us. And it would be so cosy, we three friends together.’
‘It will be cosier still on the bank of the river,’ I told her. ‘Where I intend to be.’
Loi scowled. ‘I’ll persuade you otherwise when we meet up in Charybdis, Sinclair. I’m staying with Gastarian and his crew at the Jasmine Hotel, on Mariners’ Walk. He will treat you both like brothers when he learns you saved my life.’
I refilled our glasses with wine. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘please tell me more about the race.’
I was quite drunk by the time I staggered from the lounge and into bed. I was sound asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow, and did not awake until I became aware of a slight figure nestling beside me. Loi rested her head on my chest, and such was her size that her bare feet hardly reached my knees. Her wings covered us like a silken counterpane. Strangely content, I closed my eyes and slept.
In the morning she shook Blackman formally by the hand, then stood on tip-toe and kissed me quickly on the lips. ‘Until Charybdis,’ she whispered.
She joined her wings behind her so that they met like hands at prayer, then inserted them through the open window of the bed-chamber. She walked backwards, climbed up onto the sill, and looked behind her. Her wings became a blur of motion, lending her a buoyancy peculiar to witness.
Then, with a wave, she was gone.
* * * *
Our last full day aboard the vench-train proceeded without incident.
We passed through the foothills and entered a great defile cut deep into the rock of the central mountains. Such was the depth of the chasm that only a high, narrow strip of sunlit sky illuminated our way; the blue shadow was cold, the sheer granite flanks of the abyss on either side intimidating. Ahead, the vench were forced to fly in a tight formation, their caws of protest echoing eerily between the rock faces.
Blackman was quiet, whether through the influence of our surroundings, or in contemplation of what awaited him in Charybdis, I could not say. I ate alone at midday, while he stood to attention on a central, uncovered carriage, attempting to soak up what little sunlight fell this far.
He joined me for dinner, seating himself across the table from me with an abstracted nod. We ate bowls of broth - an appropriate dish considering this chill stretch of the journey. I was subdued, my thoughts consumed by the Messenger called Loi.
Overhead, the night sky was a dull orange gloaming; gaslights placed around the dining deck provided the illumination by which we ate.
Blackman mentioned that we were due to arrive at Charybdis at five the following afternoon, and we chatted desultorily about the trip so far. Towards the end of the meal, I said, ‘Can I ask you something?’
Alerted by my tone, he looked across at me warily. ‘Go on.’
‘Well . . .’ I hesitated. ‘I was wondering if ... if liaisons between Messengers and regular humans are accepted on Tartarus?’
He smiled to himself. ‘You are attracted to Loi?’
I blushed, which was answer enough.
‘In general,’ Blackman said, ‘such unions are frowned on by other Messengers - but they are tolerated.’
That night, as I lay in my bed in the abyssal darkness, I could hardly sleep for thinking of the tiny Messenger, and when I did finally fall asleep my dreams were full of her. I dreamed, also, of my father. ‘Love?’ he spat at me. ‘You think yourself in love with an alien creature you hardly know? What folly!’
I awoke in a sweat around midday, some residue of his censure touching my emotions with guilt. Then I reminded myself that I was no longer in the thrall of my father - my arrival on Tartarus and subsequent events had given me a measure of independence and self-confidence I had never possessed before. I told myself that I should consider only my own feelings for the girl and dismiss as irrelevant the opprobrium of the long-dead tyrant.
Then something about the quality of the light which flooded the chamber made me sit up and peer through the window. At some point during the night we had left the dark chasm and emerged on the seaward side of the central mountains.
Hurriedly I threw my possessions into my travelling bag and barged up the stairs. I was not alone in my desire to catch an early glimpse of Charybdis: it seemed that every traveller was above decks. I pushed through the crowd and joined Blackman by the rail. The lofty peaks were far behind us, and we were free-wheeling down a steady gradient between verdant foothills. The vench, released from their labours, were passengers themselves now upon the first two carriages of the train.
Blackman touched my arm. ‘Look. The river St Genevieve. And keep in mind that this is but a minor tributary of the Laurent!’ He pointed across the valley, to where a geometrically perfect arc of water tipped itself from the edge of an escarpment and tumbled fifty metres, all rainbow-spangled spume and thundering power. The river surged on between the pastures, boiling with visible rips and eddies where the treacherous corals tore it from beneath like razors through silk.
Soon, the torrent bisected the outskirts of the township: neat, white timber buildings, A-frames and Dutch-barn houses. For a kilometre the track paralleled the river, until the shining iron rails terminated at the station and the water surged and tumbled on its headlong race towards the river Laurent and eventual rendezvous with the Sapphire sea. At last we had reached Charybdis.
After the medieval hustle and bustle of Baudelaire, Charybdis seemed a rural paradise. The avenues were wide and tree-lined, and the tall, timber buildings stood in their own grounds. Even the centre of town, where the station was situated, was spacious, and the pace of life unhurried.
We climbed from the train with our bags and strolled from the station, into a large cobbled courtyard surrounded by tall trees aflame with copper leaves.
‘Sinclair!’
Loi jumped excitedly from a horse-drawn trap and ran across the cobbles. A giant of a man, whose smile seemed a mixture of tolerance towards the Messenger’s impetuosity, and amicable welcome, climbed down more slowly and followed her.
Loi hugged me, and then made the introductions. ‘Gentlemen, Shipmaster Sigmund Gastarian of the Golden Swan - the finest master on Tartarus.’
The big man, garbed in sailor’s breeches, an armless vest and a tricorne, smiled modestly. He shook hands with Blackman and myself. ‘She exaggerates,’ he said in a quiet voice at odds with his appearance, ‘and from all I hear we have you to thank that she is still able to do so. Welcome to Charybdis. I’ve booked you into the Jasmine as my guests. When you’ve refreshed yourselves, we’ll eat.’
The Jasmine hotel was one of a dozen three-storey timber buildings that lined the Mariners’ Walk, overlooking the wharves of the river. There was much activity along the Walk. ‘Sailors all,’ Gastarian explained, as the trap pulled up outside the hotel. ‘The race commences the day after tomorrow, and the teams are making last minute preparations.’
The lavish meal that the Shipmaster threw in our honour lasted all evening and well into the early hours. Present were the crew of the Golden Swan - some twelve youths of my own age, and their escorts - a five-piece band playing shanties, and, later, a slew of masters and crews from competing ships. There was a strange air about the party that ensued, a mixture of apprehension at what the future might hold, and a devil-may-care determination to live for the minute. I recalled what Greaves had told me about the mortality statistics, and as I looked around at the drunken, happy faces I wondered how many of them might survive this year’s race.
There were speeches and toasts, declarations and promises - I recall Gastarian telling a hushed crowd how we effected the rescue of the Messenger, and demanding from me a few words, but I cannot for the life of me remember what I said, except that it received a roar of approval and the reward of more drink. I recall seeing Loi once or twice, and smiling across at her. But it was as if we were both too shy to come together in company. At one point I saw Blackman and Gastarian deep in debate, and noted that though there were other Blackmen present, none wore black leathers.
I must have spoken to a hundred strangers that night, and downed a dozen measures of alcohol. I have no recollection of getting to my room - but I fancy that Loi must have had a hand in assisting me. When I awoke in the orange-hued early hours, the room spinning and my mouth as dry as sand, she was once again in my arms.
The following afternoon she took me to a cafe on the waterfront. More visitors had arrived in the town during the night, in preparation for the race; they promenaded up and down Mariners’ Walk, inspecting the many colourful boats moored prow to stern at the river’s edge. We were not alone in the cafe; two or three youths in sailors’ attire caught my attention. They were wearing skullcaps with leads attached to persona-cubes before them on the table.
I whispered to Loi, ‘What are they doing?’
She frowned. ‘My guess is that they’re programming the cubes - downloading their personalities into the devices. They will then give the cubes to loved ones and next of kin in case they don’t survive the race.’
‘Does the Church not proscribe such technology?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘The persona cubes are illegally imported. Their owners face severe fines, even imprisonment, if discovered.’
I judged that I was sufficiently close to Loi to tell her about my father. ‘Blackman said that I should visit the race museum on St Benedict’s island. Do you know how I might get there?’
‘Well, I do,’ she said, her eyes downcast. ‘The only problem is that the island is the finishing point of the race - it stands three kilometres from the mouth of the Laurent river in the Sapphire sea itself.’
‘So? I don’t see any problem,’
‘Sinclair - the only boats that visit the island at this time of year are those that complete the race. The straits between the mainland and the island are so treacherous . . .’
I sat back and digested the information.
At last I said, ‘Do you know if there’s still a spare place aboard the Swan?’
‘Gastarian was looking for crewmen this morning.’
I hesitated. Then: ‘I think I’d better get myself a blank persona-cube, to leave some record of who I was.’
Loi reached across the table and took my hand. ‘There’s no need for that. You don’t think that if the Swan went down I wouldn’t save you, pluck you from the river just as you saved me?’ She stood and pulled me from my seat. ‘Come, let’s find Gastarian and tell him the good news.’
We strolled along the river bank, admiring the line of ships, each one a-swarm with crew attending to the final preparations before tomorrow’s early start.
‘There it is,’ Loi announced, pointing. ‘The Golden Swan.’
I might have guessed the vessel’s identity, even without the help of the nameplate bolted to its timbers. The ship was the only golden one on the river; thirty metres long, two-decked and three-masted, its figurehead a swan’s proud neck and head.
I saw Blackman and Gastarian standing together on the foredeck. The Shipmaster peered down at us and waved. ‘Climb aboard. Let me show you around.’
We joined them on the higher deck. ‘Good news,’ Loi said. ‘Sinclair wishes to join the crew of the Golden Swan!’
Gastarian turned to Blackman. ‘Is prognostication another of your many talents?’ He turned to me. ‘He told me last night that you would sign on before sunset.’
I smiled at Blackman. ‘However did you know?’ I asked.
‘Let’s say . . . intuition, shall we?’
‘And what,’ Loi put in, ‘does your intuition say about the race?’
‘I see the Golden Swan victorious,’ Blackman forecast. ‘Gastarian the recipient of the Grand Prize, Sinclair and Loi blithely happy . . .’
The Shipmaster cleared his throat. ‘And you, sir? I take it that you will join our crew?’
Blackman assented. ‘I would be honoured to serve as the eyes of the Swan.’
‘This calls for a celebration - but first let us show young Sinclair my ship.’
The tour of inspection was perfunctory enough.
‘Manoeuvrability is the key to our success,’ he said. ‘To dodge the corals we need shifting weights on the lower deck. My crew - yourself included, Sinclair - will provide this weight.’ He indicated a dozen timber constructions, like crucifixes, that projected at angles from the gunwales and overhung the water. ‘In unison, upon my command, you will throw yourself from one to the other of these. I’m using more crew than any other ship, but I hope that our increased weight in that department will be offset by the fact that the Swan is lighter than most of the other vessels. You’ve seen enough? Let’s join the others in the tavern.’
And thus was my crash-course in the mariner’s art concluded.
We found the crew of the Golden Swan in a tavern done out like the cabin of a ship. Gastarian ordered drinks and we sat at a corner table. Blackman left after just one drink - the revelry did not accord with his pensive mood. I sat for the rest of the evening with the tiny Messenger on my lap, drunk less from the alcohol I consumed than from Loi’s presence. We talked and talked, of everything and nothing, of ourselves, our pasts and futures, our hopes and fears . . .
Loi must have been reading my mind. ‘Come,’ she said, dragging me from my chair.
We sprinted down Mariners’ Walk to the Jasmine hotel, ran hand in hand up the wide staircase. I stopped outside the bedroom and stared in shock at the door. ‘What . . .’ I began.
The lock had been forced, the wood of the jamb splintered. The door stood ajar. I pushed it open and stepped into the room, Loi beside me. A few drawers hung open, and the mattress of my bed had been dislodged as if the intruders had expected to find valuables beneath it.
I checked my travelling bag.
‘Did they take anything?’ Loi asked.
‘I don’t think so. Fortunately I had my credit chip with me. Just a minute—’
‘What’s wrong?’
I emptied out my bag, but it was nowhere to be seen.
‘My father’s persona-cube,’ I whispered. I slumped amid my tumbled belongings. ‘But who could possibly have wanted my father’s persona-cube?’
Loi stroked my cheek. ‘Some evil sailor,’ she said, ‘who’d wipe it clean and programme it with his own identity? Oh, Sinclair, I’m so sorry.’
I hardly knew how to react appropriately. The cube had been so much a part of my life that I could not imagine being without it. And yet its loss seemed less important - and in some strange way symbolic - because of the feelings I had for the girl now kneeling before me.
We came together in a fierce embrace and stumbled towards the bed.
* * * *
The hectic events of the following morning allowed me no time to brood over the loss of the cube, or to reflect upon the night spent with Loi.
At first light I was awoken by a knock upon the door. ‘Sinclair,’ Gastarian said. ‘It is the morning of the race.’
The sun was just above the horizon and already Mariners’ Walk was thronged with spectators gathered to watch the ships as they sailed downriver to the starting point. We followed Gastarian and Blackman through the crowds towards the Golden Swan. All along the waterfront sailors were boarding their vessels, and race officials checked to ensure that no crews exceeded eighteen, the maximum allowed. We swarmed aboard the Swan and took our stations.
Gastarian stood tall and proud before the wheel on the upper deck, calling encouragement down to us. Loi sat cross-legged on the lower deck, smiling across at me from time to time. Blackman affixed his spars and rose aloft, his flickering wings lifting him high above the masts of the ship. While four of the crew set the sails, the rest of us buckled ourselves into the harnesses which were roped to wooden eyes in the centre of the deck. The length of the ropes allowed us to reach the timber frames projecting from the gunwales. Once I was secure in my harness, I glanced up and down the river: the other ships were almost under way, their masters shouting their readiness to the officials on the shore. Other Blackmen, though none in sable leathers, patrolled above their boats, together with the Messengers. Sails and spinnakers bloomed as the ships, the Golden Swan among them, cast off and sailed down the river to starting point proper.
As soon as we had set off, a transformation overcame the quiet Gastarian. He shed his reserved persona and took control.
‘Central, boys!’ he called to us over his shoulder. We crouched amidships, grasping purpose-made handholds on the deck. Above us, silhouetted against the cerulean sky, Loi and Blackman flew side by side.
Soon all thirty ships were proceeding at a leisurely pace downriver, a colourful armada with airborne attendants. I noticed perhaps twenty Messengers, the tiny, faerie creatures flying above each boat which could afford their services. Along every inch of the riverbank crowds waved and cheered; bunting and pennants lined the way. A ridiculous pride swelled within me, replacing for seconds at a time the bowel-wrenching fear at the thought of what I had embarked upon.
We approached the broad Laurent river, its half-kilometre width deceptively calm at this point. One by one we left the tributary behind, sailed onto the Laurent and passed beneath a high arching footbridge. From this bridge hung thirty thick ropes, and as each boat passed under the bridge a member of the crew assigned the task grasped the rope and made it fast to the ship. Our man made no mistake, and tied it securely to a beam of timber traversing the stern. We were tugged to a gentle halt along with the other ships. I looked along the starting line, at the ships waiting to be released, their eager crews, their hovering Messengers and Blackmen.
I glanced into the sky; Loi hovered low, her wings a blur of gossamer. Blackman flew fifty metres ahead of the Golden Swan, ready to scan the river and call back instructions to Gastarian.
I exchanged glances with the rest of the crew; on each face was an identical expression: the grim determination to succeed, belying the fear that each of us felt.
A profound silence settled over the phalanx of ships. My heart pounding, I looked up at Loi, who saw me and waved. The official starter counted down from twenty. At zero, the ropes were released from the bridge and the thirty-odd ships surged forwards. It must have been a stirring sight - so many sailing ships abreast and hurtling downriver in search of an early advantage. I was aware only of our increasing speed, the sun hot on my back, and Gastarian’s shouted instructions. ‘Okay, and here we go. Stay central, boys! Move only when I give the word. We’ve started well!’
After five minutes my hands were sore from gripping the holds, my knees abraded by the wood of the deck. The muscles of my back ached already from holding so hunched a posture. I tried to relax; we had three or four hours of this to endure.
We had little to do for the next fifteen minutes. Gastarian adjusted our course with minimal turns of the wheel, and the crew in the rigging trimmed the sails from time to time, but we were not called upon to effect a swerve away from projecting coral. As the other crewmen relaxed and looked about them at how the other ships were faring, I did the same. I was surprised by how many vessels had fallen behind. I roughly estimated that we had outpaced twenty ships; another five or six were alongside us, and the three or four which had outstripped the Swan were no more than a boat’s length in front.
‘Hard to port!’ The command was so sudden and unexpected that several of us delayed, before throwing ourselves frantically at the gunwale and swarming up the timber crucifixes. The ship yawed, spray soaked us in a cool shower. ‘Faster next time. The coral nearly bit us deep! Faster!’ Gastarian called. ‘Now central, boys, and be ready for the next command.’
I chanced a glance astern. Only a dark discoloration in the blue of the river, an elongated smudge, showed the position of the deadly coral.
As the minutes passed, so our speed increased as the river narrowed and the water surged ever faster. Our passage became turbulent, so that we had to grip the handholds to remain in position. We were flashing past cultivated farmland, with the occasional small figure of a farmer cheering us on. Perhaps twenty-odd ships straggled in our wake. Two maintained positions alongside us, and another two were out in front.
‘Remember this: relax and we’re dead. This is the easy part. Another hour and you begin to earn your money! Steady, now. We’re doing well.’ Gastarian manhandled the wheel, and in the rigging tiny figures adjusted the snapping sails.
My thoughts were interrupted by a cry from the sailor behind me. To port, the ship in fourth place surged towards us, the intentions of its master clear: three great beams projected from its foredeck, a crude and ugly method by which to scupper an opposition boat.
Alerted by the cry, Gastarian turned. ‘Evasive action! Man your port frames!’ As one we surged in response, and only as I flung myself upon the crucifix, legs wrapped around the timber, hands desperately gripping the cross-beam, did I realise the danger we were in. The bellicose boat was barely five metres from us, and bearing down remorselessly. The projecting beams raced towards us like battering rams, threatening to tear the very timbers upon which we twelve clung. A second after diving on our crucifixes, the manoeuvre had the desired effect. The Golden Swan yawed tremendously and we brave souls flew beneath the rams of the neighbouring ship. The Swan cut across its bows - our wide stern timbers ripping a great rent in the aggressor’s flank. As we swept on triumphant, the other ship limped to shore, its Messenger and Blackman circling despondently. We cheered as we returned to our handholds.
Ever the vigilant shipmaster, Gastarian warned us against complacency. ‘Minds on the job!’ he bellowed over his shoulder. ‘There’s corals ahead! Ready, now ... To starboard!’ Like trained monkeys we leapt as one to the frames, feeling the ship tip as the port side left the water, hopefully clearing the corals spotted by the signalling Blackman. The boat tipped, and I was doused with a cool slap of water. I gripped the cross-beam with all my strength, my ribs grating against the timbers. ‘And back! Well done. We’re doing fine.’
The ship in fourth position, however, was not so lucky. From upriver came the terrible, rending screech of torn timbers, and I glanced back to see the ship founder upon a projecting reef of rock. As we watched, horrified, the deck of the ship parted company with its hull and sheered off into the river where it sank in seconds. Those crewmen able to leap free did so, but the unfortunate hands buckled into the harnesses were not so lucky. I stared and stared at where they had gone down, willing them to surface, but to no avail. I was reminded of our own precarious safety, the danger should we go down: how nimble would our fingers be at unfastening our buckles then, with our lungs full of water and the dangers of carnivorous fish ever present? Then, miraculously, I saw two or three heads bob to the surface, and a Messenger and a Blackman swoop down and with difficulty drag the sodden bundles through the river, deposit them without ceremony on the shore, and return in a bid to save more lives.
We passed through a narrow stretch of water between two forested glades, a scene that might have been idyllic but for the speed of the river and the knowledge of what lay ahead. Behind me, a sailor muttered, ‘Ready yourselves, lads. Two minutes, that’s all we’ve got. Then it’s either nimble be or a watery grave. Hark Gastarian and be ready to leap like fleas!’
‘The first two boats are still in sight,’ someone said, ‘which at this stage is welcome indeed. By God, if fate shines on us and keeps us dry, we can win this one!’
‘Don’t speak too soon. We’re not even halfway there - more die between here and the sea than anywhere else.’
Ahead, the two leading ships were weaving this way and that through a stretch of boiling rapids, their masts rocking to and fro like metronomes. At times they were almost on their sides as their deckhands scurried from port to starboard and back again in a frantic effort to avoid the lethal corals.
I was struck by a sudden trembling panic - soon we would be in their position, fighting for our very lives! I was almost sick with apprehension. Glancing around at my team-mates, I saw my fear reflected in their faces, and I was torn between relief that I was not the only coward aboard, and fright that these hardened sailors should so fear what awaited us.
‘Be ready...’ Gastarian growled at us. ‘This is it! We enter the rapids!’
‘Nimble to it lads,’ said the sailor behind me.
‘To starboard!’ Gastarian yelled, and to starboard we leapt. I clung to the timbers, shaking in every limb. The ship tipped alarmingly and we were submerged. I gasped, drenched and breathless. It was fortunate that there was no coral on this side of the ship or we would have been ripped to death in seconds.
‘To port!’ came Gastarian’s yell, muffled in my water-filled ears. I flung myself left, slipping on the wet timbers, and somehow, miraculously, found myself clutching the timber port frame as we were doused again, for so long this time that I thought we had gone under for good. All was a chaotic maelstrom of silver bubbling water and filtered sunlight, a roaring of the churned river and a protracted creaking of straining timbers.
‘And to starboard!’
‘Starboard, lads,’ called the sailor behind me, for the benefit of those deafened by the dunking.
We charged across the deck, launched ourselves at the frames, and clung on for dear life as the ship tipped quickly like a spinning top, waltzing between the underwater hazards.
This set the pattern for what seemed like hours. Not once did we rest, not for more than fifteen seconds at any one time did we stay on our frames before we were ordered off again. I lost all track of time. I seemed to have been performing this manic dance for all my life; in minutes I had become experienced, my concentration honed. I no longer felt fear, but a kind of head-spinning, ecstatic excitement. No longer did I worry at what might become of me if we went under. I lived for the second, charged with an insane confidence in Blackman, in Gastarian, in my crewmates and myself. We worked as one, for each other and for the ship. I realised, after what seemed like an age, that each of us was shouting like a man possessed, echoing Gastarian’s commands, a synchronised chant that bonded us into a well-drilled, efficient unit.
Each second, I realised in retrospect, brought ever more near-death experiences; every metre of water presented us with perils. I was hardly aware of individual incidents at the time - they were over so rapidly, and the next one upon us, that we had no time to dwell on what had been. Now I recall the highlights, and marvel that we ever survived.
At one point a crucifix with a sailor upon it struck an outcrop of coral and was instantly snapped. The crewman dropped over the gunwale, and then, thanks to his secure rope, was tossed back onto the deck, shaken and half-drowned but otherwise uninjured. From then on he doubled up on the timber frame of his neighbour. Repeatedly our projecting frames scraped the corals, shaving fragments from the living rocks that blasted us like shrapnel. Soon our arms and bodies were slick with our life-blood as well as water, and the deck would have been awash with blood but for the regular dousings that washed it clean. I recall, vividly, a fish flying towards us, its great mouth a thicket of barbed fangs, a lethal man-trap that would have severed a leg in seconds. One of our number fell upon it and clubbed it to death with his bare fists.
And, most remarkable of all, was the wreckage of the ship we overtook. We must have passed the stricken vessel in a matter of seconds, but so indelibly was the picture of carnage imprinted on my mind’s eye that it seemed we dawdled by long enough to fill our eyes with the gruesome horror. I made out the remains of a dozen bodies impaled upon projecting spurs of coral as if for our inspection. I swear we were washed by water tinted crimson with the blood of the dead, its rusty iron taste filling my mouth and nose. Above the carnage, lodged precariously on the reef like some hopeless, makeshift memorial, was the deck of the forlorn ship with its upright masts and pathetically flapping sails.
Someone behind me cursed, and I fought not to be sick. Then Gastarian yelled a command and we concentrated on the task at hand.
And then, incredibly, the sound of his voice did not come again, and the raging water no longer drenched us, and the Golden Swan kept an even keel. We knelt amidships like exhausted sprinters, our blood gathering and running down the cracks between the timbers. I managed to fill my lungs with air for the first time in what seemed like hours, and then I laughed in relief and joy, and this was taken up by the others. And what a sight we were! To a man we were blood-soaked and cut about, scrolls of skin hanging from our bodies, bruises beginning to bloom on arms and shoulders.
Only once more after that were we called to man our frames, something of an anticlimax after such hectic action. I realised then that in our fight to survive we had overlooked our position in the race.
‘Are we ahead?’ I cried.
Gastarian indicated forward. ‘Not quite. But look.’
Perhaps three ship-lengths ahead of us was the leading ship, a white-painted vessel with blood-red sails. A cry of triumph arose from my team-mates - and then I realised the reason for their joy. The leading ship was damaged. A hole gaped in its starboard flank and it was taking in water, listing badly though still maintaining speed.
‘The open sea!’ Gastarian called, and sure enough we were fast approaching the widening estuary that gave onto the ocean. Ahead, I made out the low landmass of St Benedict’s island. I noticed for the first time the crowds on the headlands, cheering and waving flags in the bright sunlight.
The damaged ship hit the open sea ahead of us, and I judged that the island was only two kilometres away. It was now up to the crewmen in the rigging, as they trimmed the sails to catch the available wind.
We exhausted dozen could only sprawl across the deck and stare impotently. Bit by bit we seemed to be gaining on the limping ship, but the island, and the finishing line strung out across the facing bay, were drawing ever closer. Metre by metre we gained, and it came to me that all our good work would count for nothing, that we would come home in second place. With less than two hundred metres to the line of bunting that indicated the race’s end, the Golden Swan surged alongside the opposing boat. I stared across at the hapless ship, its exhausted crewmen a mirror image of ourselves.
Miraculously, the opposing boat gained speed. As I watched, appalled, little by little it edged in front. Gastarian called out to the men in the rigging, who adjusted a sail. Again we drew alongside, and, hardly daring to hope that we might win the race, I looked ahead. The finishing line was but metres away, and fast approaching.
Then, as if the Golden Swan itself wished to win the race, from nowhere the ship found speed and inched ahead. Seconds later we hit the line of bunting barely two metres ahead of the stricken vessel, and the cries that went up from the crew were deafening.
We unbuckled ourselves and embraced, crying tears of joy and triumph. It seemed that only now could I consider the danger we had passed through, and a kind of retroactive dread coursed through me. Shipmaster Gastarian came among us, returned to his quiet self now, and with tears in his eyes thanked each one of us in turn. Loi descended and embraced me, her kisses smothering my face. When she finally pulled away her tunic was imprinted with my blood.
The Golden Swan drew alongside the harbour wall, and we carried Gastarian ashore on our shoulders. I found my land-legs with difficulty. The quayside was crowded with islanders, a reception committee of local dignitaries and a clan of Blackmen beside them. The Mayor approached Gastarian and escorted him across the cobbles, Blackman at his side. Gastarian was called upon to say a few words. I feared that soon I too would be forced to add my views. I whispered to Loi that I needed a few minutes to myself, then slipped from the crowd and up the hillside towards the township.
* * * *
I asked directions to the Race Museum and found it on a high greensward overlooking the strait, a single-storey weatherboard building painted white. I climbed the steps and pushed open the door. There was no one else inside, and I was thankful for the privacy.
The single room was long and low, with a polished timber floor and a plate-glass window looking out to sea. The room had the hushed air and stillness of all museums, as if the events of the past which it exhibited were sacrosanct. On one side of the room were scale models of every ship that had won the race for the last fifty years. On the wall above each ship was a roll-call of their crews, and above them portraits of their victorious shipmasters. Below the lists of the triumphant crews were, in smaller print, the names of all the many sailors who had perished.
I walked slowly along the length of the room, counting off the years.
When I came to the model of the ship that had won the race six years ago, I read the names of the sailors who had succumbed to the many dangers of the river Laurent. I was aware of a constriction in my throat. I expected at any second to come across the name of my father - but, to my surprise, it was not among the two hundred names of the dead of that year. Very well ... I moved on to the next year, and began the laborious process again, reading off the names of the dead. The more names I read without arriving at my father’s, the more I considered the possibility that he might have survived.
If I located his name, and he was indeed dead, then all would be explained. But if he had survived - then what had become of him? Had he eluded me yet again, a cruel second time?
His name was not among those sailors who had died three and four years ago, so I tried the list from two years ago ... to no avail.
Was it possible, then, that his ship had won?
I was moving back to the list from four years ago, when I happened to glance up . . . and what I saw stopped me in my tracks.
Staring down at me from the wall was a portrait of my father, the Shipmaster of the Flying Prince, the championship boat of the year 1516.
Beneath the portrait was a long caption outlining his achievement. My heart hammering in my ears, hardly able to believe what I was seeing, I read.
I came to the end of the caption, stunned, and looked up into the eyes of my father - not the jubilant eyes of a winning master, but eyes dark and haunted by past events.
For perhaps the fifth time I read the final paragraph of the caption. ‘Gregor Singer was a criminal captain, who faced the death penalty for deserting a private army if he refused a Shipmaster’s commission. He accepted, won the race in true style and, as is the custom, applied to join the Guild of Blackmen. He was accepted, and taken . . .’
I read no more. I backed away from the photograph of my father and stood in the centre of the room as if paralysed.
He was accepted by the Guild of Blackmen . . .
Only slowly, by degrees, did awareness overcome me.
I sprinted from the museum and down the hill. The crowd was still gathered on the quayside, arranged to view some spectacle. Only as I joined them and pushed my way through the press, did I see the focus of their interest. A dozen Blackmen in coloured leathers were already rising into the air. To my despair I saw that among them was the Blackman in jet leathers, my father.
I stood mute, watching him ascend. The other Blackmen formed a circle around him as they climbed ever higher, towards the sun. I fancied that my father could see me, was watching me, a small figure in the crowd, standing mesmerised as he gained altitude.
The twelve Blackmen circled my father, moving faster, until they became a Catherine wheel blur about the tiny figure of the central Blackman; then they fell away ... He raised his arms above his head in a gesture like a benediction. A tension communicated itself through the crowd, and I could hardly bring myself to watch.
Then he began to glow, at first orange, and then red, and the crowd around me murmured their appreciation of a sight so aesthetic. I wanted to cry out, to halt the process, but at the same time knew that this was his destiny.
His detonation, his explosion into a million golden fragments, drew from the observers as many gasps as exclamations, and from me only tears.
I slipped from the crowd. The concerns of the islanders, enjoying their banal routines, filled me with anger. How simple were other people’s lives when compared to the complexity of one’s own!
How youthful I was then . . .
I walked along the pebble beach and sat down before the sea. For perhaps an hour I remained there, reliving my time with the Blackman, wishing that somehow he could have overcome his programming and told me of his true identity.
A small voice drew me from my reverie.
I turned and watched Loi pick her way towards me across the sharp pebbles, her expression one of tortured determination. ‘So here you are! I wondered where you’d gone.’
She had her hands behind her back, as if concealing something from me. ‘Sinclair, I tried to find you. Did you see Blackman’s finale?’
I nodded that I had.
She smiled at me. ‘He gave me this, Sinclair - to give to you.’ From behind her back she produced my persona-cube and handed it to me.
She must have sensed that I needed to be alone. ‘See you later,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll be in the quayside tavern. Gastarian and his crew are celebrating our victory, and mourning the dead and gone.’
I watched her leave the beach, then turned my attention to the cube in my lap. With trembling fingers I turned it on. My father - the Blackman - stared out at me. He was seated in his hotel room, his dark presence dominating the scene.
‘Father,’ I whispered.
‘Sinclair,’ he said. ‘You must have many questions, and I have so much to explain . . .’
As the sun set, and the fiery light of night filled the sky, I sat on the beach and talked with my father.
* * * *
|
I |
made my farewells to the house, moving from room to open-plan room, standing in doorways and viewing in my mind’s eye scenes and incidents long gone. The house was grown from Tartarean wildwood, without doors or windows, and admitted the cooling northern breeze, great dancing butterflies and the mingled fragrances from the abundant flowers in the garden. I moved to the verandah and leaned against the rail, staring down across the vale to the shimmering blue lake and, in the distance, the lofty mountains of Mallarme. Now that the time had come for me to leave the playground of my youth, I felt compelled to stay a while longer, to linger, to bathe in the memories that flooded back like an incoming tide.
Two momentous events occurred that summer fifty years ago, when I was fourteen and life seemed a thing of limitless possibilities and boundless hope. I suffered a loss that affects me still, and for the first time I fell in love. So bound together were these incidents in my memory, as I looked back over the years at the shallow but honest boy I was then, that I could not recall one without being reminded of the other. My childhood was a halcyon period of endless summers, and it was the first time that real tragedy, and inexorable passion, had touched upon my life. The combination of events changed me - for better or for worse, I do not know, but changed me nevertheless - from the starry-eyed youth I was then to the man I am today.
Perhaps the beginning of the end was the first day of my holiday, when my father called me to say that he and my mother wished to speak with me. The summons, via the speaking-pipe beside my bed, awoke me to a brilliant, sunlit morning tempered by a cool breeze from the mountains. My room was a thoroughfare for all manner of iridescent flying insects, and flowers curled their inquisitive heads through the window-hole as if to witness my awakening. I had arrived home the night before from my boarding school in Mallarme city a thousand kilometres to the south, and I could think of no greater contrast than between the drab confines of my dormitory and my own room. I had been released from the prison sentence of school - the long months of the holidays seemed to stretch ahead without end - and my room was a symbol of all that was good in life.
After my father’s terse summons, I pulled on my shorts and shirt and, my feet bare to the warmth of the wildwood, made my leisurely way down the many stairs to the ground-floor. My parents’ possessions - the wooden carvings from Earth, the artwork from around the Thousand Worlds, the Tartarean rugs and tapestries - were familiar from my many summer and winter holidays here in the past, but at the same time new and exotic after the spartan furnishings of my school.
My parents, likewise, seemed to be creatures at once familiar and yet larger than life, like well-loved characters from a much-read novel. I could not say that I knew them well, nor could I claim to have loved them - they seemed to me to be stereotypical parents, offering safety and succour, and demanding in return only my attention and obedience, a contract that suited me, in my already semi-independent way, very well.
I had spoken only briefly to my father the night before, when he had met me at the vench-train station of Verlaine, and we had not broached the topic of my falling grades. I expected that this was what they wished to speak to me about this morning. I envisaged the dialogue as I knocked upon the archway to the study and entered: my father’s demand to know the reason for my lack of success, my usual excuses, my mother’s entreaties that I would do better next term, my earnest promises that I would. Already I was eager to be away from the house, to be with my friends in the tree beside the lake. They had been on holiday for the past week - I had been kept back to repeat an exam - and I was impatient to catch up with events, afraid of missing out on shared experiences that would subtly exclude me from the camaraderie of their company.
My father was seated behind his vast desk, a big man with a florid face and curling silver hair: he was cheerful and lenient by nature, only occasionally stipulating bounds that were not to be crossed, and never were. My mother stood before the arch that overlooked the garden and the lake. I had once overheard a guest at a house party describe her as beautiful, which had surprised me at the time, as one never thinks of one’s mother as being the object of such attention. She might have been beautiful, but she was also cool and distant. She seemed to me to go through the motions of being a mother, like an inadequate actress playing a part for which she was manifestly unsuited. They were both botanists who had come from Earth to study the flora of Tartarus, fallen in love with the province of Mallarme and decided to stay.
My mother moved from the arch and perched herself on the corner of the desk, while I sat on the facing chair, my feet dangling inches above the polished timber tiles.
My father tapped something before him, hidden from me by the elevation of the desk. ‘How much have they taught you at school about the supernova?’ he asked.
I was surprised and relieved that I was not to receive a lecture. ‘Well . . .’ I began. ‘We’ve studied all about the atomic processes—’
My mother gave a tolerant half-smile. ‘No,’ my father said, ‘I mean our supernova - the effects it will have on Tartarus?’
I frowned. I failed to see the reason for the question. ‘We were taught that one day the sun will blow and destroy the planet.’
‘In one or two hundred years from now?’
I nodded. I had never really stopped to think that the beauty I took for granted would one day be no more. To a child of fourteen, a century or two means the same as a million years.
My father said, ‘The scientists have revised their estimates. They’ve noticed increased activity in the sun itself.’
He smiled at my expression of blank incomprehension. ‘The scientists say that the sun will blow not in a hundred years, but in fifty or sixty.’
Now fifty years is a sum manageable to the mind of a young boy; fifty years was well within the expectancy of my life span, and my father’s words touched something deep, and until then unplumbed, within me. I felt a kind of awed appreciation of the fate that would befall Tartarus, my home and all I knew.
Beyond my mother and father, through the arch, I saw a group of kids running down the lane that led to the lake. I made out Gabby and Bobby, Satch and Rona. Then I saw the detestable Hulse, whose name seemed to suit him, and saw too that he had his arm about the shoulders of little Leah Reverdy, and that she seemed not at all bothered by this gross imposition - in fact, by her tinkling laugh that reached me on the wind, was rather enjoying his attention. The sudden surge of jealousy I felt then was overtaken by pique that they had not called upon me to join them - then I rationalised that they could not have known I was home.
I was impatient to join them, to impart the portentous news that within our lifetimes Tartarus would be destroyed. It seemed important that I share my discovery with them, so that perhaps I might judge from their reaction how I myself felt about the impending catastrophe.
‘The reason we’re telling you this,’ my father continued, ‘is that we want to know what you would like to do.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You were due to leave school next year,’ he said, ‘and work a year with us before starting college at Baudelaire.’
My mother took over. ‘If you did that, you might feel . . . shall I say, emotionally tied to Tartarus? You would be in your twenties before you graduated, and feel less like leaving the planet. By the time you are fifty, the evacuations will have begun, and it will be much more wrenching to leave then.’
‘The alternative,’ my father said, ‘is to attend college next year on Earth, break the link with Tartarus now.’
My mind was in confusion. For so long my future had been certain - study at Mallarme, then Baudelaire, with frequent visits home - and I could hardly conceive of this new plan.
‘No. No, I don’t want to leave.’ I thought of Leah, and the hopeless possibility that one day I might have her as my own - and it seemed that if I left Tartarus next year then my chances, even as slim as they were now, would be nil.
‘Perhaps you should have some time to think it over,’ my mother said. ‘It’s different for your father and I. By the time of the supernova, we’ll no longer be around.’
I could not bring myself to meet her gaze. If I indicated that I understood her I would seem heartless, while if I feigned ignorance I might appear foolish.
‘At least you know the situation now,’ my father said, bringing the subject to a close.
‘May I leave now?’
‘What about breakfast?’ my mother asked.
I told her that I’d grab some fruit on the way down to the lake - berries and citruses were bountiful in the hedges of the lane - and left the room. I could have gone around the desk and through the arch, but I felt that I would be impinging on my parents’ territory, and perhaps by doing so provoke more questions. I wanted nothing more than to rendezvous with my friends.
I left the house and sprinted down the track to the tall hollow-tree that over the years we had made our own. So impatient was I to tell my news that I failed to gather my breakfast on the way.
The entrance in the bole of the tree was concealed by ferns, which I brushed aside. Over the years, since first discovering the tree, we had worn the bark of the narrow defile to a lustrous glow with our continual passage back and forth. I slipped easily inside, found the footholds in the darkness and climbed. The tight chimney corkscrewed up the trunk of the tree, and I wondered how Hulse was finding the climb these days. He was a year older than me, and big for his age. I considered what might happen when he found he could no longer fit through the entrance: he was the nominal leader of our little gang, and knowing him as I did I guessed that he would call the hollow-tree out of bounds, a childish rendezvous anyway, and suggest that we meet at the cafe on the jetty instead.
My ascent was illuminated by the leaf-filtered sunlight that spilled through the exit hole in the trunk high above. I came to the oval slit, breathing hard, and paused before climbing through. The wide branch thrust from the tree at right angles, and over the centuries a great fungal growth had spread from this branch to the next, creating a triangular platform perhaps ten metres in length. Seated at the far end of this platform, their backs to me and their legs dangling over the edge as they stared down at the lake, were Rona, Gabby, Bobby - and Hulse, with his arm around Leah. I looked up to find Satch, and as expected detected his shape through the membrane of the dream-sac suspended from the branch above. For as long as I’d known him, he’d made every excuse to slope off and climb into the parasite plant and hallucinate the hours away.
Now that the time had come to tell my friends about the imminence of the supernova, I was overcome with an odd reluctance. Although we all, with the exception of Leah, attended boarding schools in Mallarme, these schools were different and we rarely saw each other during term. Only three times a year, during the holidays, did we renew our friendships: always the reunions were fraught and embarrassing affairs, for me at least, as I fought to overcome my shyness and regain the degree of intimacy attained during the last break.
Rona turned and saw me. ‘It’s Joe,’ she said, waving.
Gabby and Bobby both turned and waved in greeting, but, pointedly I thought, Hulse and Leah remained with their backs to me, absorbed in each other.
Forced to make an entry now, I waved and crawled on hands and knees from the tree trunk and across the fungal platform. Rona, Gabby and Bobby joined me and we exchanged the usual stilted greetings. We chattered about the past term, and I made a joke of my poor grades, only to be matched by Bobby who had failed all his major subjects and would be kept down next term. Of all of them, Bobby was my best friend, the one with whom the gap of months between meetings seemed like mere hours. He and Gabby were brother and sister, both tall and blindingly blonde, but whereas Gabby was all laughs and chatter, Bobby was quiet and self-absorbed, perhaps even a little slow. Rona was small and freckled and really quite ugly, but friendly and funny.
Gabby grabbed my hand to silence me, opened her eyes wide and leaned forward. She was about to divulge a secret, and I sensed that Rona and Bobby were far from happy.
‘Joe,’ said Gabby, prolonging the suspense, ‘guess what?’
‘What?’ I laughed, looking from Bobby to Rona.
‘Gabby . . .’ Bobby protested.
Gabby threw back her blonde head and laughed. ‘Rona and my brother,’ she declared in a primly theatrical voice, ‘are lovers!’
Oddly, it was me who reddened. The couple in question just looked at each other with that quiet complaisant smile of all newly joined couples.
Bobby then elbowed his sister in the ribs. ‘And who does it in the sac with Satch?’
Gabby bit her bottom lip and frowned up at where the dream-sac hung heavy with Satch’s weight above us. ‘Well, where else can we do it? He never comes out of there!’
Rona clasped her hands over her heart. ‘Can you even imagine it? Gabby and Satch in love!’
‘It’s not love,’ Gabby said with a frankness beyond her years, ‘just lust. How could I love someone who’s always so high?’
Rona, perhaps to make me feel less left out of the pairing off that had gone on in my absence, took my hand and hauled me to the edge of the fungal patio. ‘Just look at the view, Joe! I swear it gets better every year.’
We sat side by side, our legs dangling over the edge, and stared out across the lake. We were perhaps twenty metres above the scintillating blue expanse, and the aerial view of the long body of water wedged between the gentle green hills made me think, as always, that I must surely live in the most beautiful region on all Tartarus. In the middle of the lake was the Zillion’s island, but there was no sign of the creature today.
‘Joe bombed and had to resit his maths exam,’ Gabby told Hulse and Leah.
Hulse just grunted. ‘You never could count, kid,’ he said.
Beyond him, Leah leaned forwards, like a queen in a hand of cards. She pushed her lips to the side of her face in a too-bad grimace that sent my heart pounding. ‘Hi, Joe,’ she said, lazy and laconic, and in the same way waved her fingers at me, minimally.
I had purposefully not looked Leah’s way until now: I could no more acknowledge her liaison with Hulse than I could have faced the possibility that she might snub me. She was the youngest among our group, at least in terms of years, though she had about her the natural sophistication of a woman twice her age. I had worshipped her from afar since I was ten, and just a year ago a miracle occurred when she became Gabby’s best friend and, in consequence, a member of our group.
Not long after that she took up with Hulse, perhaps impressed by his bravado, his leadership skills; I should have hated her for it, but I could only feel sorry for her and wait until the day when she saw through his swaggering act.
She was as slim as a moonfern, brown as a coffee bean. When alone in her company I was almost always speechless. On one embarrassing occasion, which she either did not notice, or deigned to overlook, she had playfully grabbed my arm and asked me a question, and in a paroxysm of fright and delight I had lost control of my bladder.
I recalled what I had rushed here to tell them.
‘Have you heard about the supernova?’ I asked. ‘It’s due to blow in fifty years.’
Hulse turned to me, something like heroic forbearance in his attitude. ‘When did you find that out, kid?’
‘Just now. This morning. My father told me.’
Hulse flicked a fashionable lock of hair from his eyes. ‘Just what do they teach you at your school?’ he sneered at me. How I hated his heavy-featured face, with its expert appropriation, freakish in someone so young, of adult disdain.
I glanced around. Bobby and Rona and Gabby were silent, gazing down at the lake. Leah was concealed behind my tormentor; I could only see her bare legs, embraced by her equally bare, brown arms.
‘Supernova in fifty,’ Hulse reeled off, ‘evacuation plans begin in thirty, actual evacuation in forty. Citizens to be evacuated by provinces, to designated planets in the Thousand Worlds. Communities to be kept intact, unless individuals wish otherwise, in which case they pay their own way.’
I tried to hide my unease, but that was impossible. I had a face that flared as red as a beacon at the slightest perceived affront.
‘I had no idea ...’ I stammered. ‘Nobody told me.’
Hulse rolled his wrist in a haughty gesture. ‘Consider yourself told.’
‘Are ... are any of you leaving before . . .’ I stuttered. ‘That is, before the actual evacuation?’
Gabby glanced at her brother. ‘Daddy said he’s thinking about taking us back to Earth. But I hope he doesn’t.’
‘I’m leaving anyway when I graduate,’ Hulse said, ‘but I expect I’ll come back from time to time, for old time’s sake.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Leah?’
She leaned forward again, and her smile banished all my self-doubt. ‘I’m staying here until the evacuation,’ she said, and I was cheered by the thought that her declaration intimated her independence from Hulse. ‘What about you?’
Timorously, I returned her smile. ‘I’m staying too,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.’ Perhaps boldened by her attention, I went on. ‘It’s hard to believe that in fifty years this ... all this . . .’ I gestured in lieu of words.
Rona said in a whisper, ‘All destroyed in the ultimate firestorm.’
‘God,’ Bobby said, as if the thought had just struck him, ‘Mallarme, the mountains and the lake . . . even Baudelaire!’
I glanced across at Leah. Tears filmed her vast, brown eyes.
Hulse said, ‘Yeah, just think of it. Every last bird and beast burned to a cinder.’
I expected Leah to protest, to cry at least. Instead she laughed and hit out at Hulse with a tiny, ineffectual fist. ‘Oh, you . . . you typical man, Hulse!’ and there was something close to admiration in her tone.
I stared down past my feet at the wind-rilled water far below. A silence settled as we each considered our thoughts, or in Hulse’s case whatever passed for thoughts.
I wondered if the holiday would continue in this vein, or if Hulse would let up and treat me as a human being. He’d been affable enough in the past, to the point where I almost considered him a friend, but he had always spoiled himself with some barbed cruelty or malicious act - not always directed at myself. Bobby had been the butt of his arrogance in the past. Perhaps this was one of the reasons Bobby and I were close.
‘Talking about birds and beasts,’ Hulse said, ‘shall we tell him about the Zillion?’
I glanced around at my friends, but they looked uneasy and would not meet my gaze.
‘What about it?’ I asked Hulse.
‘While you were resitting your exams,’ he said, ‘we began a dare.’
I guessed what the dare was, and I understood then the unease of my friends. I felt my palms begin to sweat where I gripped the lip of the fungus.
‘What kind of dare?’
‘On the first day of the holiday, I swam over to the island at sunset, sat and waited until the Zillion came out, then stared him down.’
I looked across the lake to the green knoll of the island. In years gone by we had often dared each other to swim across to Zillion’s island and confront the creature. At nights, as we huddled around the fire that Hulse had expertly built on bricks carried up from the lane, we had tried to frighten each other with ever more terrible stories about the strange creature that made its home on the tiny island. We knew it for a rogue Arcturian gladiator, or a man-eater, or a telepath who could kill with a single thought. My parents laughed when I told them this, and said that he was an harmless alien hermit who had come to Verlaine to see out the rest of his days in peace. But then they would say that, I reasoned, to keep the dreadful truth from me.
So Hulse had finally summoned the courage to face the alien ... I would have been impressed if I had not disliked him so much.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
Hulse shrugged nonchalantly. ‘He just stared at me. I thought I felt a prickling in my head, as if he were trying to read my thoughts. Then he returned to his lair and I swam back.’
I stared at the island. It was perhaps a kilometre away. The swim alone would have been enough to tax my strength, but then to confront the alien . . .
Hulse went on, ‘Next day, Leah did the same. Then Bobby and Gabby and Rona. Even Satch stirred himself from his sac yesterday and paid the creature a visit.’
Hulse was looking at me, sidewise, assessing my reaction to the news. I glanced at my friends. They knew I was a poor swimmer, knew I would have difficulty reaching the island.
Like a torturer relishing the agony of his victim, Hulse let the silence stretch.
‘So . . .’ he said at last, ‘how about this evening at sunset?’
‘I . . .’ I cast about feebly for an excuse. ‘I can’t. Not tonight. I said I’d help my mother in the garden.’
Hulse’s stare combined disbelief with supreme disdain.
‘But,’ I went on, surprising myself, ‘I’m doing nothing tomorrow night. I’ll swim over to the island then.’ And I stared at him until he looked away.
‘You all heard that,’ he said to the others. ‘Joe’ll risk his life tomorrow.’
‘Don’t joke about it, Hulse.’ This was Leah. She leaned around Hulse and smiled at me. ‘Don’t worry ‘bout it, Joe. You know,’ she continued lazily, ‘nothing is ever as bad as you expect it to be.’
Shortly after this, the meeting broke up. Gabby stretched and yawned, staring up at Satch in his sac. ‘You’ve slept enough, boy. I think I’ll go and wake him up.’
Quietly, whispering to each other, Hulse and Leah slipped from the platform. I heard them climbing high up inside the trunk, caught a glimpse of Leah’s legs as she stepped out onto a more private platform high overhead.
Bobby and Rona were arguing beside the slit in the bole. Finally Rona flounced from view, and Bobby joined me on the edge. ‘Women!’ he complained, shrugging his shoulders. ‘How about a game of Out?’
He pulled a miniature set from the pocket of his jacket and we sprawled in the dappled sunlight and played the best of three. My mind was not on the game - a combination of trepidation at what I’d got myself into in agreeing to the swim, and some subtle realisation that Bobby would rather be with Rona, distracted me. I played badly and lost the first and third games.
I rolled onto my back and stared up through the dancing foliage. Above me, the canoe-shape of the dream-sac swayed and bulged as Gabby and Satch made love.
‘What was it like, when you swam across to the island?’ I asked Bobby.
I could not see him from where I lay looking up through the foliage, but I sensed his hesitation. I could imagine his reluctant shrug, his slow grimace. ‘Oh . . . you know. It’s easy, once you’re there. Don’t worry about it, Joe, okay?’
‘It’s easy, once you’re there,’ I repeated. ‘But it’s getting there that’s giving me the shits. And then there’s the bloody Zillion.’
He was silent. I closed my eyes. So much childhood experience is needlessly traumatic: I had often wished I could reassure the naive boy I was then that, as Leah had so wisely quoted, nothing was ever as bad as you expected it to be.
Perhaps an hour later, having got over her sulk, Rona appeared from the hollow-tree and smiled across at Bobby.
‘See you tomorrow, Joe,’ he murmured, and slipped away hand in hand with the short, ugly, red-headed girl. I lay there a while longer, contemplating how awful life could be, and then climbed down and made my way back home.
* * * *
So fresh were the memories that it was hard to credit that fifty years had elapsed since we had played in the tree beside the lake. For almost that long I had lived on Earth and Cymbaline, having followed my parents into the profession of xeno-botany. I had always intended to return to Tartarus some day, but the time had never been quite right - I was always busy or otherwise occupied. Then I heard on a newscast that the evacuation of the planet had begun. I took the fastest sailship to Tartarus and arrived at Verlaine on the day before Mallarme province was due to be evacuated. I had thought that perhaps I would need more time to reacquaint myself with the haunts of my youth, but in the event I found that my memories were too poignant and that one day was quite enough.
With two hours to go before the Thousand World Confederation carrier transported the remaining citizens to Baudelaire, I left the house for the very last time and walked down the hill to the lake.
Little had changed across the intervening years. The rolling green countryside was as I remembered it, fragrant and bedecked with flowers. So completely did the track to the lake - more a tunnel through thick, over-arching hedges - match my memory of it that I might have been transported back in time. Only the increased heat gave away the lie, and the dazzling, depthless white-hot sky. I passed familiar houses on my way, the open timber villas where Leah and the others had lived, empty and overgrown now like my own.
I arrived at the shore of the lake and noticed that a couple of the nearby hollow-trees had been felled - but not, I saw with a sudden start of relief, our own. I almost ran across to it. The ferns no longer concealed the entrance, and as I knelt and caressed the smooth, worn wood I marvelled that I had once been small enough to slip through the narrow gap. Now I could barely force my shoulder through the crevice. More than anything I wished I were able to climb up inside the tree, to renew my intimacy with the locale that had meant so much to me.
I stood and walked around the tree, to where its gnarled roots knuckled down towards the water’s edge. I shaded my eyes and gazed up the length of the trunk, at the branches that began ten metres above. With a thrill of recollection I made out the dark, triangular wedge of our fungal platform, and above it the small white shapes of the dream-sacs.
I sat down with my back against the bole and stared out across the lake. The water level had dropped with the increased temperature over the years, and the island seemed correspondingly larger. I stared at the dry, grassy hump and for a second imagined that I could make out the Zillion.
* * * *
On the eve of my encounter with the alien, I mooched around the house and garden, avoiding my parents and the inevitable questions they would ask. Why was I not outside, playing with my friends? The lie I had told Hulse earlier - that I had to help my mother in the garden - prevented my joining the others, but of course I realised that my friends would be occupied with other, more important things that evening, and would not welcome my presence.
I slept badly that night, dreaming of drowning in fathoms of water, of falling victim to the Zillion. I slept in till almost noon, then ate and read by turn until the sun lowered itself behind the distant hills and a beautiful, peach-wine light flooded the countryside. The Zillion would be climbing from its underground lair about this time, to sit in the twilight and contemplate who knew what.
I left the house and made my way down the track. I was so absorbed with my fear that I was only half-aware of Bobby as he stepped from the concealment of the hedge and barred my way. He looked as terrified as I felt.
‘Bobby? What’s wrong?’
He took me by the shoulder and pushed me into the hedge, as if he feared we might be seen. ‘I’ve been waiting here for hours,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d never come out.’
I shrugged, puzzled by his attitude. ‘I said I’d meet you at sunset . . . What’s the matter, Bobby?’
‘Look . . .’ He couldn’t bring himself to meet my gaze. ‘I wanted to tell you yesterday, but I couldn’t.’
‘Tell me what?’
He hesitated. ‘What Hulse told you then, that he swam across to the island...’
My heart banged in joyous reprieve. ‘What?’
‘He didn’t. He didn’t do it. He was lying.’
I stared at him.
‘And the other things he said, about me and the others swimming across . . . we didn’t do it, either.’
I was speechless for long seconds. Then I said, ‘You could have said something yesterday.’
‘You don’t understand. He said if we said anything, he’d tell my father about Rona and me, and Gabby and Satch. You know what my father would do if he found out.’ He reddened, then went on, ‘Last night Leah came and told me that we had to do something. I said I’d see you today.’
‘Leah?’ I asked, like an idiot. ‘Leah said you had to tell me?’
‘What’s so unusual about that?’ He regarded me. ‘Look, why do you think Hulse treats you like he does? It’s because Leah looks out for you, and Hulse doesn’t like that.’
I shook my head. The realisation that Leah thought about me - albeit in the same way a sister might think about her kid brother - was a strange and marvellous revelation.
‘So . . .’ Bobby went on, ‘all you have to say is that your father was out on his boat all last week, and didn’t see us swimming to the island. Tell Hulse he’s lying and that you’re not going to do the dare, okay?’
We continued down the track, through the dusk air filled with floating seed heads, and came to the lake that rippled at this time of day like molten gold. The others were beneath the tree, seated among the roots to gain a grandstand view of my swim. Even Satch was there, having vacated his sac especially for the event. He looked bleary-eyed and absent.
I noticed Leah and Rona glance edgily at Bobby, who nodded to them that everything was okay. Hulse had prepared a barbecue, a small fire roasting spitted spearback fish. Last year he’d found a valuable silver lighter in the main street, dubbed himself the Keeper of the Flame, and initiated a series of barbecues that he liked to think were the height of sophistication.
I stood hesitantly by the lake, watching them. Leah gave me a dazzling smile. I could only blush and look away. I told myself that it was better to be regarded by her as a little kid who needed her protection, than not to be regarded at all.
Hulse turned to me, waving a spitted spearback in the air. ‘Care for a last meal, kid?’
I was aware of all the eyes on me. ‘You don’t eat before swimming,’ I heard myself say. ‘Didn’t you know that?’
Hulse merely shrugged and turned away, while the others stared at me as if I’d taken leave of my senses. Perhaps I had. I had not planned to continue with the dare, but at Hulse’s ‘last meal’ jibe it had seemed the only thing to do. To confront Hulse with his lie and refuse the dare would be to admit my fear. To swim to the island, say good day to the alien, swim back and then confront Hulse - now that would be a supreme victory.
Hulse passed the cooked fish around. The others sat with the plates on their laps, reluctant to feast while I drowned. Hulse had stolen a bottle of wine from his father’s cellar. He poured himself a generous measure, enthroned himself among the roots, and gestured with his glass.
‘Your turn, kid,’ he said, gesturing towards the lake.
I began unbuttoning my shirt.
Leah opened her pretty mouth, goggling at me like a roast spearback. Gabby scowled at Bobby, who just shrugged. It was Rona who spoke up, ‘You don’t have to do it, Joe.’ She turned on Hulse. ‘This is silly and unfair anyway!’
But already I’d removed my shirt, kicked off my shoes and turned to face the lake. The island seemed kilometres away. There was no sign, at this distance, of its alien occupant. I took a hesitant step forward, feeling the mud squelch between my toes, then waded out through the shallow water. It was warm after the heat of the day, but it was still a shock when the water reached my crotch. I gasped and, too buoyant to walk any further, launched myself forward. The lake enveloped me and I began a hurried breast-stroke, aware that my feeble technique must have looked comical from the shore. It was then, when I had committed myself and knew that there was no turning back, that my bravado collapsed and I knew fear. I tried to channel my nervous energy into physical action, at the same time conscious that I must pace myself. I slipped into an easy rhythm, controlled my breathing and set my sights on the irregularity of the island ahead. I gained confidence the further I went, and even wondered at the thoughts of my spectators on the shore. I considered turning and waving back at them, to show that I was okay, then thought better of such hubris.
Halfway to the island I paused and trod water, giving my tired arms a rest. So far, though strenuous, the swim had been easier than I had imagined. The water seemed to buoy me along. I realised that a good part of my fear had been that of the swim itself. Now that I had gained confidence in my ability to reach the island alive, the thought of encountering the alien no longer seemed so terrible. Before I set off again, I turned and scanned the shore. My friends were no longer seated beneath the tree; they were standing now and watching me intently. I rolled over and pushed off again, breathing easily and focussing on the knoll of greenery that rose from the flat, shimmering gold expanse.
Perhaps five minutes later I reached the island. My spirits during the approach were lifted by the fact that I could not see the alien. The sandy crescent of the beach was deserted. It occurred to me that even if I reached the island and did not encounter the Zillion, at least I had achieved something that Hulse had been too cowardly to attempt.
My hand struck the lake bottom as it inclined to create the island. I stumbled upright, realising only then how exhausted I was, and forced my legs step by weighted step through the shallows. The lake gave up its grip on me and, abruptly lightened, I stepped ashore and sat down on the sand. Breathing hard, I looked around. It came to me where I was, the amazing fact of my geographical relocation. I stared back towards the shore and made out, tiny beneath the towering tree, the stick figures of my friends. I raised my hand in a lazy wave, and after a delay they signalled in return.
As the seconds elapsed I gained confidence, or perhaps it was nothing more than false bravery as I knew I was being watched by my friends. I climbed to my feet and walked around the island. It was small, and the circumnavigation took less than two minutes; other than the beach and a few rocks, it consisted of tough grass and gorse. When I passed from sight of my friends, I admit that a strange panic took me, an overwhelming need to be on the beach again. I hurried around the far side of the island, scrambling over a tumble of rocks, and breathed more easily when the familiar hollow-trees came into sight. I stood on the sand and waved across the water. I judged that I had given the Zillion sufficient time to emerge and attack me, and that I would not be shamed if I made the return crossing now.
Then some sixth sense - that frisson of awareness that comes when we know we are not alone - made me turn. The Zillion had climbed from his lair and stood watching me, perhaps five metres away. I could not move: a cold paralysis gripped me. We were a tableau that might have symbolised the very first meeting between alien and human, the representatives of different races stunned by fear and suspicion.
I had seen the alien through a telescope, of course. I was aware before the encounter of his general appearance, but at close quarters I was struck by his - its - reality, its animalness. It was bipedal, and squat, and brought to mind nothing so much as a toad, with its moss-green, reptilian skin and bulbous head. That much I had known. What was new to me was the sound of its breathing - long and laboured - and its peculiar stench, like fish that had been left out in the sun to dry.
I would have turned and dived into the lake, but for the thought that the Zillion would be an expert swimmer and would apprehend me with ease. So, instead of fleeing, I did the very opposite. I took a hesitant step forward and held forth my hand.
I was motivated by fear, not bravery - propelled more by the need to ingratiate myself, to abase myself before this monster, than to assume any kind of superiority. Bobby told me later that from the shore I appeared confident and composed, but the truth was that I was shaking and sick with fear.
The alien regarded me unblinkingly for what seemed like minutes, and then made its move. I had expected either that it would turn and flee, as would most animals, or attack me: it did neither, but stepped forward, its gait infirm with what I took to be age, and matched my gesture with its own long, stringy right arm.
I touched its ice-cold fingertips, and the next I recall I was sitting cross-legged before the Zillion who had dropped into an easy, splay-kneed squat.
He regarded me with bulging golden eyes, and then spoke.
His English was limited, and almost incomprehensible. ‘Your name?’
‘Joe, Joe Sanders,’ I replied before I could register amazement at his question.
He touched his chest, where his oiled green skin was marked with three wide golden chevrons. ‘Zur-zellian,’ he said. ‘Welcome.’
‘I ... I swam across. I wanted to see the island. I won’t stay long. My friends are waiting. They’ll be wondering what happened to me. I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’m sorry if I’m trespassing . . .’ I babbled on, a monologue born of equal parts relief and crazed disbelief.
I spluttered to a stop. Zur-zellian blinked his great eyes, once. His voice was a low throaty rumble, and in retrospect each pronouncement reminded me of a release of air, a surge of bubbles though water. ‘How old are you?’
‘I . . . I’m fourteen.’
I was sure that, had I been able to read his reptilian expression, I would have seen that nostalgic wonderment common the galaxy over when oldsters regard the fact of youth.
‘Fourteen. I . . .’ Again, his long, double-jointed fingers touched his chest. ‘I am four hundred of your years.’
I wondered if he was aware of my expression: it must have been exaggerated enough. ‘Four hundred years old! Four hundred?’
‘For two hundred, I have lived here . . .’ He gestured with both hands. ‘In . . .’ He closed his eyes, opened them again. ‘In retreat, meditating.’
Something about his great age, the enormity of his two-century seclusion, scared me. Perhaps I felt again that I was intruding. At any rate, I made my excuses to leave. ‘It’s . . . it’s been good to talk with you,’ I said, jumping up quickly. ‘I must go now. My friends . . . they’re waiting for me.’
He stood, slowly, and regarded me. I thought he said, ‘Come again,’ but I might have been mistaken. I backed off, sketching a hurried wave, and stumbled into the lake. I swam away from the island with irrational panic, as if, contrary to all logic, the alien might decide now to attack. As the minutes passed and I controlled my hurried strokes, I began to regret my hasty departure. I considered all the questions I should have asked him. Had he really invited me back to his island, and would I have the courage to accept his invitation?
Halfway to the shore I paused and, treading water, looked back at the island. The beach was deserted; the meeting might have been a figment of my imagination. I continued towards the stand of hollow-trees, and my friends awaiting my return.
Bobby, Rona and Gabby waded into the shallows and hauled me out, with Leah and Satch not far behind. ‘What happened?’ Gabby squealed. ‘We saw it come from its hole. It was right behind you!’
‘What did it say?’ Bobby asked, awe in his expression.
Leah gripped my arm, her small hands hot on my wet skin. ‘Thought you’d had it, didn’t we? Thought the alien’d got you, Joe.’
I laughed and spluttered explanations, a hurried description of my meeting with the being. I told them that he was called Zur-zellian, from which the name by which we knew him must have derived, and that he had been in retreat on the island for two hundred years.
I fielded other questions, unaccustomed to being the centre of attention, and then looked past my friends to where Hulse stood beneath the tree, glaring at me with homicide in his eyes.
The others saw the direction of my gaze and fell silent, then moved aside as I made my way across to Hulse. I stopped before him, aware of his clenched fists, his glare. At any other time I might have been fazed, but my encounter with the alien had bestowed me with strength, not to mention a righteous anger.
‘You liar!’ I spat at him. ‘You filthy, cowardly liar!’ And, though I had not intended to hit him, I lashed out with my fist and surprised myself when I connected with his cheek. He lost his balance, then his footing, and went slithering down the root system and fetched up in the lake.
A part of me felt like running, to save myself from the beating I knew I was about to receive. But I held my ground. Perhaps I realised that, even if he did beat me to a pulp now, the victory would still be mine.
But instead of attacking me he launched himself from the lake and, pressing his fingers to his cheek, ran past me up the bank and disappeared along the lane. The others watched him, slack-jawed to a person. I was so confused I could not meet their eyes, beset with the emotions of residual rage, elation, and maybe even shame at my outburst of violence and its consequences.
I hurried around the tree, slipped into the crevice, and climbed and climbed, corkscrewing up past our platform, past the first dream-sac that Satch had made his own, until I came to the narrow opening that gave access to the second sac.
So much had happened in the past hour that I needed to be alone for a while. I had taken refuge in the sac at traumatic times in the past - at least, what I considered traumatic times: when Hulse’s bullying had become too much, when I interpreted Leah’s silences as personal snubs - and I’d always emerged calm and renewed.
I crawled along the branch until I came to the great pendant polyp of the dream-sac, its entrance curling from beneath the branch like the horn of some great musical instrument, inviting animals to enter. I stripped off my sodden shorts, left them outside to dry, and squirmed naked down the narrow tunnel and into the sac. Sunlight struck through the diaphanous envelope, turning the air within a golden apricot hue. Immediately upon my entry, the sac began secreting its hallucinogenic gastric juices. The containing membranes ran with a sticky, sebaceous fluid, anointing my nakedness and filling the air with its heady, dream-inducing perfume. Smaller animals than myself would have been digested, but the only effect on humans was a sensuous, vision-filled slumber. I stretched out along the length of the sac, luxuriating in the sensation of the fluid washing over me, and closed my eyes.
A matter of seconds seemed to pass before the hallucinogen began its work; I heard a sharp rapping sound on the branch outside the sac, followed by a small voice. ‘Joe . . .’ I heard, as if from a million miles away. ‘Joe, can I come in?’
Sleepily aware that the sound had an external source, I opened my eyes. Leah’s head poked through the entrance, staring at me. ‘Joe,’ she smiled. ‘Coming in, okay?’
A part of me thought that my greatest wish was coming true, while another ascribed the vision to the effect of the drug. I stared up through the entrance as Leah removed her leggings, and then her blouse, folded them neatly and piled them beside my shorts. She wore only briefs and a halter top now, blindingly white against her brown skin. With a quick glance down at me, she choreographed two swift moves - a quick twist and a bend - and was suddenly and startlingly naked. Feet first she dropped into the sac and lay beside me, looking at me with a neutral expression on her perfect face.
Were it not for the sedative effect of the hallucinogen, I’m sure I would have had a heart attack. The confines of the sac ensured that we were pressed together, our bodies lubricated by the fluid. Leah moved on top of me, ran a hand through my hair and kissed my face perhaps a dozen times, as if experimenting. I held her to me, the feel of her small hot body enough to make me faint. I had never before been with a girl; in my fantasies, our liaisons had been swift and mechanical, bereft of tactile sensations, heft or pressure. What struck me then - or rather later, when I had time to dwell on what had happened - was how gloriously physical and lubricious our lovemaking was. I was ignorant of the moves to make, and could only lie in ecstasy while Leah moved, moaning, to an age-old rhythm.
Later I held onto her, loath to let her go, as I felt the drug take hold and drag me into unconsciousness. In my dreams I was flying through the stratosphere, with Leah by my side.
When I came to my senses, perhaps hours later, I was quite alone. I cried out in despair as it came to me that our tryst had been nothing but a dream. Though how, I asked myself, could something so traumatic and memorable be no more than hallucination? I struggled into a sitting position, then squirmed through the tunnel entrance and into the light of the stars.
Leah was sitting on the branch, her knees drawn up to her chest, watching me with a sleepy smile on her face. I was aware of my nakedness, of Leah’s, as I knelt on the branch before her. I was speechless, sick with apprehension and emotions I had never experienced until then. I reached out, and before I knew it I was holding her and - an indication of my confusion - sobbing against her shoulder.
She ran a hand through my hair, then drew back her head to look at me, and wiped the tears from my cheeks with her fingertips.
‘I didn’t know . . .’ I began, but couldn’t finish. I wanted to say that I didn’t know she cared.
Leah smiled and shook her head. ‘Always liked you, Joe. You just never realised.’
‘But ... but Hulse?’
She whispered, ‘What about him, Joe?’
She reached out, took my hand, and drew me back into the dream-sac.
We were inseparable, after that. Every day from dawn to dusk, and beyond, we spent in each other’s company. She would call at my house as dawn touched the sky, and my mother would find me and say, with a knowing pleased smile, ‘Your little friend’s here, Joe.’
We made love, but mostly we talked. I got to know her, and her me. My infatuation with her matured as I came to understand the person that Leah was; I grew to love her, to love her faults and inconsistencies as well as her attributes, her humour and consideration.
I once asked her about Hulse.
‘What did you see in him, Leah? Why did you like him?’
‘Was silly and stupid and vain,’ she replied with her usual lazy honesty. ‘He was older and strong and he showed an interest in me, and he was the first, and . . . oh, just wanted to be seen with him.’ She smiled at me. ‘Then, came to see what he was really like, how cruel he was. Then you paid him back, made him seem just this big—’ she pressed together her thumb and forefinger. ‘And it wasn’t, like, can’t be seen with him now - it was just, don’t want anything more to do with this creep.’
During that first magical week, I forever expected Hulse to show himself, to disrupt our idyll with threats of violence, or, worse, with violence itself. But he stayed away, and the six of us continued as if the incident beside the lake had never happened. We spent the mornings in the tree, playing games and talking and laughing, and then, with silent consent, we drifted away two by two and made love during the long, hot afternoons. Evenings, we met again and ate packed meals as the sun set and the moons sailed over the lake. We must have gone for walks from time to time, or swam in the lake, but if so I cannot recall these occasions. I remember only the hollow-tree, and the dream-sac, and Leah’s gentle, lazy laughter as we joked and traded secrets.
Hulse’s return to the fold was neither as dramatic or threatening as I had feared. We were gathered on the platform one quiet evening, watching the sun go down, when sounds echoing up through the tree indicated company. All eyes were turned to the crevice as Hulse, showing not the slightest sign of embarrassment or injured pride, emerged bearing bottles of wine.
I should have guessed that someone with Hulse’s vanity would have ulterior motives in rejoining our group. After depositing the wine, he turned to the crevice and held out his hand. From the trunk emerged a girl - no, a woman - several years our senior. She wore a long dress quite unsuited to the conditions, cosmetics in the latest style, and a smile that was as insincere as it was patronising. Hulse introduced her as Susanna, opened the wine and offered a toast. ‘To old friendships,’ he said. ‘May they continue for ever.’
We accommodated the reprobate in our group, made his superior girlfriend as welcome as we were able, and drank until the stars came out. Hulse was affable to me, as if our altercation was forgotten, and neutrally polite to Leah. She regarded him through slitted eyes and, though pleasant enough in his company, confided to me in private that she would never trust him until his last breath.
The following weeks passed in pleasant days spent in the tree or enjoying barbecues beside the lake. I never spoke with Hulse about his lie concerning the dare, and he for his part never stooped to his old barbs or bullying tactics. While I could not claim that we became friends, I was willing to forget old enmities, and we got along reasonably well. Even Susanna, the daughter of a rich businessman from Baudelaire, became one of the group. She exchanged her dress for more suitable clothing, dispensed with make-up and joined in with our juvenile games and jokes. Hulse seemed devoted to her; they too made their excuses, disappeared in the afternoon. I never had any reason to suspect that he was merely using her to his own ends.
There was a solar flare that summer, a great gout of flame that exploded from the bloated sun and illuminated the sky for a full week. We took to camping on the platform at night, watching the spectacular gold and magenta aurora flicker from horizon to horizon. For a month after the flare the temperature climbed day by day; the land was parched and seared, and the authorities declared Mallarme province a total fire ban area. We sunbathed beside the lake and went without our barbecues.
Later that summer Leah and I spent long days alone together, wandering through the hills, staying at rest-houses and hostels - playing, in other words, at being grown up. We spent evenings alone in the high meadows, watching the tiny shapes of the flying Messengers as they went about their business. It seemed inconceivable that the summer might end. I knew that in a month we would return to our respective schools, but a month was a long time, and anyway there would be all the years in the future that we would be able spend together. I was young, and in love, and it was entirely forgivable that I should give no thought to the possibility that we might ever be parted.
Fifty years . . .
As I sat with my back against the rearing hollow-tree, staring out across the sun-drenched lake, it seemed impossible that half a century had elapsed since those innocent children played and loved in the branches high above. If I listened hard enough, I convinced myself that I could hear their laughter, far away.
Tragedy, in retrospect, always seems so terribly arbitrary and accidental - the culminating consequence of so many smaller incidents and occurrences that we are as powerless to prevent at the time as we are after the event. How often down the years had I looked back and tried to discern, in vain, some obvious signal or pointer as to what was about to happen?
* * * *
The prelude to the finale came when Leah asked me about my encounter with Zur-zellian. We lay side by side on our stomachs, our chins hooked over the lips of the fungus, and stared down at the lake. The others had not yet arrived.
Leah lodged her chin on her fist and said, ‘Tell me ‘bout the Zillion again, Joe.’
I laughed and recounted the meeting. I must have gone over the events of the day a hundred times with her. She seemed fascinated with the story, and when I said as much she just gave the laziest of her smiles and drawled, ‘Might never have come to love you, Joe, but for the alien.’
She quizzed me about its coloration, the sound of its voice. She asked me what it had said, and seemed dissatisfied that I had not thought to ask it more about itself.
I dropped a twig over the edge, watched it fall for ages before hitting the water and creating an ever widening concentric ripple.
‘Look,’ I said at last, having made my decision, ‘why don’t we go over to the island and I’ll introduce you to Zur-zellian.’
She lifted her face from her fist and stared at me. ‘You would?’
‘Why not? He’s an old friend, after all. Zur-zellian, meet Miss Leah Reverdy. Leah, meet Mr Zur-zellian, the resident on the island for two hundred years.’
She laughed. ‘We can go today? This afternoon?’
I had prepared myself for a lazy day in the tree. ‘How about tomorrow afternoon?’ I suggested. ‘We can pick salafex pods and paddle over, okay?’
She hugged me. ‘Wonderful,’ she said. ‘Look forward to that.’
The others arrived, shortly after that. It was Susanna’s last day in Verlaine, as she was leaving for Baudelaire with her father in the morning. Hulse brought wine and a hamper and threw a farewell party. I recall little of the actual event, except that I felt a vague uneasiness. With Susanna around, Hulse had been tolerable, even - though I’m loath to admit it - friendly. I wondered what might happen when Susanna left. Would Hulse still seek our company, try to win Leah back? As if to confirm my fears, I caught him sneaking glances at her when he thought I wasn’t looking. Evidently, Leah noticed his attention, too. Later that afternoon, she pulled me to my feet in front of Hulse and suggested out loud that I take her to a dream-sac.
The following afternoon Leah called for me and we walked hand in hand to the lake. I climbed a salafex tree and threw two great seed pods down to her. We stripped to our shorts and kicked off our shoes, then waded into the water, clutching the pods which we used as floats. Now that the time had come for Leah to meet the alien, I could sense that she was as apprehensive as she was excited. Even I felt a tingle of nervousness as we set off from the shore and swam leisurely in the direction of the island.
With the rise in temperature since the solar flare, the water of the lake had warmed. With the seed pod to keep me afloat, this crossing was a luxury compared to the last. We took our time and arrived at the island within fifteen minutes. I held Leah’s hand as we stood on the beach, staring up at the grassy knoll as if expecting the alien to appear at any second. Exhibiting a bravery I would not have felt if I were alone, I squeezed Leah’s hand and led her up the beach to the centre of the island. The grass was tinder-dry and yellowed, rustling against our feet as we walked up the knoll.
Perhaps alerted by the sound of our footsteps, the alien appeared at the entrance to his subterranean lair - a circular hollow for all the world like a rabbit burrow, though larger. At the sight of his broad, green face in the shadows, his golden eyes staring out like beacons, Leah started and jumped back, clutching my hand. I reassured her that it was okay, and waved in greeting to Zur-zellian.
He emerged from the burrow, his arm outstretched in a repeat of the greeting we had exchanged weeks before. We sat down, Leah kneeling cautiously by my side, the alien bending into his familiar, wide-kneed crouch.
I made the introduction. ‘This is Leah,’ I said, ‘my friend.’
Hesitantly, she reached out and touched fingertips with the alien. ‘Welcome to my island, Leah,’ he said in his slow, bubbling voice.
‘Joe . . . Joe told me about meeting you,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Wanted to meet you, ask you questions, if you don’t mind?’
He turned his hand in a gesture that might have indicated acceptance. ‘I will answer what I can.’
Leah turned to me and smiled.
She shrugged and stared wide-eyed at the alien. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘where to begin . . . ?’ She paused, then spoke with exaggerated care, pronouncing each word separately. ‘Of course: where do you come from, which planet?’
Zur-zellian blinked. ‘From Zanthar, the small planet of a small sun beyond the star cluster you humans know as the Nilakantha Stardrift.’
‘Joe said you’ve been here two hundred years,’ she went on. ‘But why Tartarus? Why did you come here?’
‘Because ... I had to go somewhere. Tartarus was quiet, secluded. At that time, there was no community beside the lake. I needed to be alone to meditate, and the island was perfect.’
‘Meditate . . .’ Leah said, savouring the word. ‘Are you a philosopher?’
The alien blinked. ‘I am what humans would call a monk.’
Leah turned to me and made an exaggerated, drop-jawed expression of surprise. She returned her attention to Zur-zellian. ‘A monk? Do you believe in a God?’ We had discussed this between ourselves over the weeks, usually after making love in the evenings and staring up at the stars. Leah had confidently proclaimed herself an atheist, and I, having never really given the matter much thought, agreed that I was, too.
The alien replied, ‘I believe in gods, in many gods. Over the years I have come to know them.’
‘You have?’ Leah goggled. ‘You came to Tartarus to meet the gods?’
I could not tell from its facial features, but I wondered if the alien was smiling at her. ‘To meet the gods and my destiny.’
‘Destiny . . .’ she repeated the word in a whisper. ‘You’ll meet your destiny on Tartarus?’
‘I will remain here until the end,’ he said.
‘You’re staying here?’ Leah almost cried.
‘It is my destiny to go in flame.’
She was shaking her head. I could see her mind working, her disbelief reflected in her features. She was a young girl, and life seemed endless, and she could not comprehend how the alien could so stoically contemplate his death.
‘But you could leave with the evacuation,’ she said.
‘I have had a long life. I have achieved everything. I will follow my destiny.’
We remained on the island for perhaps an hour, Leah asking Zur-zellian all manner of questions. I delighted in watching her response, her exclamations of surprise, her frowns and grimaces, as much as I was interested in the alien’s answers.
At last, after a thoughtful silence, she said slowly, ‘If you’re a monk, a religious person, then can you marry people?’
I stared at her, but she would not meet my gaze.
Zur-zellian replied. ‘On my planet we have certain . . . bonding ceremonies, and I officiated at them, yes.’
‘Then, in that case ... I mean - could you marry Joe and me?’
Still looking at the alien, she found my hand and squeezed, forestalling my protests.
Zur-zellian was old and wise, and must have known that we were young and foolish. In his reply he showed great . . . humanity, if that is the right word to use. He turned his hand in an equable gesture. ‘My blessing would have no legality on Tartarus,’ he said, ‘but, if both of you are willing, I can bless you and so confirm your love in the eyes of the gods.’
By the time we left the island, clutching our seed pods and paddling for the far shore, Leah had arranged a date. We were to be ‘married’ in a week’s time, on her fourteenth birthday.
It remained our secret; we did not want our friends to know in case word got back to our parents. Leah glowed with the knowledge of what was to take place. She seemed radiant, her contented, lazy smile ever-present. The others noticed something changed about her - Gabby even asked her if she were pregnant, but Leah just smiled and shook her head and withdrew into silent communion with her thoughts.
My immediate fears concerning Hulse were unfounded. With Susanna departed, he did not bother us with his company, clearly unwilling to be seen as the odd one out in the group. A couple of times over the next day or two I did see him standing across the lane from the hollow-tree, staring at us with what I interpreted to be solitary longing. Not that his brooding presence overly bothered me: I had other things on my mind, and I no longer considered Hulse a threat.
When he made his move, I was quite unprepared.
We spent the day before our ‘wedding’ walking in the hills, and night was falling by the time we made our way back home. I had decided, since it was a special occasion, that Leah should spend the night with me in my room. I would sneak her in past my parents and for the first time we would make love in my bed.
We were walking up the track, our arms about each other, when Hulse appeared from nowhere and barred our way. He carried a wooden club, and before I could collect my wits and run, he attacked.
I recall only a hail of blows, and Leah’s screamed entreaties for him to stop, before I fell to the ground and tried to squirm away. He came after me, kicked me in the ribs so that I rolled gasping onto my back. Then he straddled my chest. He forced the club beneath my chin and pushed my head back, almost strangling me.
His head hung above me, silhouetted against the star field, and his long fringe fell across his face as he panted with the exertion of keeping me pinioned to the ground. I bucked like a landed fish, but he applied pressure to my neck. I spluttered that he was killing me.
‘I will kill you, you bastard! I’ll kill you if you don’t leave Leah!’
I tried my best to laugh. Then I swore and spat in his face. He grimaced down at me, and his expression, more than his assault, sent a surge of fear though me.
‘It was going so well . . . and then you came along, you bastard!’
And with the epithet he pressed down on the club, and I swear he would have killed me were it not for what Leah did then.
She had been silent for some seconds, and I had assumed she’d gone for help - but now she returned, staggering, burdened with some heavy object. She lifted the boulder above her head and brought it down with terrifying force. Hulse cried out in pain and rolled from me, holding his head and moaning. I sat up, alternately gagging and gasping down great breaths of air. Leah, not done with her attack, launched herself at Hulse and bundled him into the ditch. She leaned over him and hissed invective in his face, the words too rapid and impassioned for me to make out. He cried out in wounded pride at what she said, climbed to his feet and staggered off down the lane. Leah ran across to me and helped me to my feet.
‘Joe! You okay, Joe?’
‘I’ll live,’ I assured her, shaking now at the thought of the assault. ‘The maniac! The crazy, stinking maniac . . .’
‘Come on, we’ll get you home.’
We continued up the lane and into the garden. It was late, and the house was in darkness. Silently we crept though the entrance arch and up the stairs to my room. There Leah inspected me. But for a few minor scrapes and a bruise across my neck, I was fine.
She insisted on bathing my battered torso, and I basked in her concern.
That night we made love in my bed as the cooling breeze lapped over us, and at first light next morning Leah rose quickly and dressed.
‘Happy birthday,’ I said sleepily from the bed.
She came over and kissed me before she slipped away. ‘Meet you on the island at noon,’ she whispered.
‘Why not by the lake? We can swim over together.’
She pushed her fingers through my hair. ‘Don’t you know anything, Joe? Bride and groom don’t go to church together . . .’ And with that she hurried from the room.
I slept, then woke to the sunlight streaming through the window. I lay in bed and smelled Leah’s scent on the sheets, and the thought of what the day would bring was a physical thrill within my chest. An hour before noon I rose and dressed and crossed to the drawer where I’d concealed Leah’s birthday present, a silver necklace. It was then, standing beside the window-hole, that I glanced out and saw activity in the lake.
A moving divot of displaced water showed on the otherwise pristine azure expanse. As I stared, I saw others, five or six - swimmers, I realised with disbelief, heading out from the shore towards the island.
My heart hammering, I pocketed the necklace and ran from the house. I sprinted down the lane, angered that on this day of all days others should decide to go to the island. I emerged from the lane and came to a halt on the shore. I stared out across the water and saw that the first swimmer was Hulse, with the others in his wake; they seemed to be gesturing and shouting at him to turn back.
We had told no one about our marriage, and so his invasion could only be a terrible coincidence. Almost in tears, I cursed Hulse and swore that I would kill him. By the time I dived into the water, deciding not to waste time collecting a seed pod to aid my crossing, Hulse had reached the island.
I swam with all my might, intent only on doing grievous harm to my enemy. The others had gained the island and stood in knot on the beach, clearly remonstrating with Hulse. I was wondering what had happened to Leah, when I saw her. She appeared suddenly on the knoll atop the island, arms akimbo, and stared down at the invaders.
I could tell by her stance that she was furious. Hulse advanced up the beach, followed by the others. Gasping and swimming frantically, I watched as events unfolded in a terrible, inevitable slow-motion.
Hulse confronted Leah and for perhaps a minute they argued: Then he stepped forward and struck her. She staggered back, holding her cheek. At that second Zur-zellian appeared by her side. Hulse went for Leah again, hit her and knocked her down; she stumbled from sight, disappearing down the other side of the rise.
Then Hulse turned to the alien. I cried out in rage and frustration. The others, my friends, Bobby and Gabby, Rona and even the soporific Satch, surrounded Hulse. He pushed them away, ran to the top of the island and, instead of attacking the alien, which I had expected, knelt and seemed to reach into the grass. I saw something silver glint in his hand - his lighter! - and pure dread exploded in my head.
The island went up in a sheet of flame. One second it was an idyllic, grassy isle, and the next it was transformed into a blazing torch. Even Hulse, aware of what he intended, could do nothing to escape the conflagration. He turned and ran as the flames whipped about him, then fell as gouts of fire leapt at him like wild animals. The others stood no chance. Within seconds they were surrounded by a circle of fire, tiny, petrified figures huddling together on the knoll. I cried out for them to run, but, even as I yelled, the fire consumed them and they fell to the ground and rolled in a futile attempt to douse the raging flames. The furnace roar swept across the water, and seconds later I felt the full force of its heat in my face. I cried out Leah’s name. I could not believe that our special day had turned within seconds to tragedy.
I never made it to the island. I was floundering, perhaps a hundred metres from the beach, when I heard a sudden roar and a powerboat cut its engines nearby. Strong hands reached out and dragged me, protesting, to safety. The last I saw, as I grasped the gunnel and stared at the island, was Zur-zellian. He was kneeling on the knoll with his arms in the air, consumed by flame and reconciled to his destiny.
* * * *
I left the hollow-tree and walked along the road and up the hill to the grave-garden overlooking the lake.
The TWC transporter waited on the greensward beyond the cemetery. I judged that I had time to pay my last respects before it departed. I entered the garden and walked through the trees and the gravestones.
Other citizens had come to say their last farewells, too, but the glade that was my destination was empty. I paused on the incline, staring down at the gravestones side by side. Fighting back the tears, I stepped forward and made my way down the slope.
I paused before the first headstone, set proudly in the short, well-tended grass. I wiped my eyes and read the name. ‘Bobby,’ I said. I moved to the next stone. ‘Gabby.’ And the next two. ‘Rona, Satch . . .’ I paused before the next headstone, even now unable to suppress the bitterness that welled up within me. ‘Hulse Gabor,’ I read, and asked him, as I’d asked so many times before, why?
The last stone of all was set a little apart from the others. I crossed to it, knelt and bowed my head. We do these things, we follow well-worn protocol, even though the dead are dead and nothing we can do, no respect we pay, can ever alter that. We go through these meaningless rituals in order to help ourselves, but I knew that in my case it was no help.
I read the headstone: ‘Zur-zellian of Zanthar, an alien visitor to Tartarus, 1271? -1671.’
I closed my eyes and heard the songs of the birds in the trees, felt the heat of the sun on my face. I was almost ready to go, to leave the planet of my birth forever, when I heard a sound behind me.
* * * *
‘Joe . . . Joe Sanders?’ A woman’s voice. ‘Is it you, Joe?’
I turned and stared and was filled with a powerful emotion - that heart-wrenching ache we experience when confronted with a reminder of who we once were, of who we might have become.
‘Leah?’ I said.
She was small, and dark, and the passing years had been kind. She was as beautiful as I remembered her, with just a touch of grey in her short, dark hair.
‘Joe, it’s been so long.’
Instinctively we both reached out, and at arm’s length held hands, and with the physical contact the years seemed to fall away.
I was back aboard the powerboat as it edged around the island, and I felt again that sudden, heart-exploding joy when I saw Leah swimming away from the island. She had climbed aboard the boat and collapsed into my arms with tears of pain and relief, but it had never been the same again.
We had tried to renew our relationship after the tragedy - oh, how I had tried. We met every day during that last month before we returned to our respective schools, but something had happened to change the girl I loved. I tried to talk about what had occurred that day on the island, but Leah remained determinedly locked in the fastness of her silence. Our love had brought about, however indirectly, the deaths of our friends and the alien, and this knowledge was too much for Leah.
The summer holiday came to an end, and I returned to Mallarme city, and when next I came home I sought out Leah, but there was nothing between us, the spark had died. I told my parents that I wished to leave Tartarus after all, and sailed for Earth shortly after my fifteenth birthday.
Now I put my arms around Leah’s shoulders and walked her from the glade. We turned and stared down at the silent graves. At last she asked, ‘Did you ever find anyone, Joe?’
I shrugged. ‘There were one or two women . . . nothing lasting or serious.’ I glanced at her. ‘You?’
‘I met a fine man. We married, had children. You would have approved of him, Joe. He passed away five years ago.’
Unable to find a suitable response, I nodded. ‘You stayed here, on Tartarus?’
She shook her head. ‘After college I left for Earth, then settled on Mars.’
A silence descended as we stared down into the glade. Leah looked up at me, and I saw tears in her eyes.
‘Oh, Joe, I was so young and foolish ... I wanted to talk about what happened. I got your address from your parents, but by the time I reached Earth you’d left. I needed to find you, Joe, to talk to you.’ She drew a long breath and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. It was all my fault.’
I squeezed her hand. ‘It was no one’s fault, Leah. No one’s. Hulse was unstable. He wanted revenge.’
‘But he would never have ... he would never have done what he did if it hadn’t been for me.’
I corrected her. ‘Leah, he resented Zur-zellian because it was the alien that brought us together. Don’t you remember? I called Hulse’s bluff and swam across to the island, and then you came to me in the dream-sac. Hulse had it in for Zur-zellian ever since then.’
‘It wasn’t that, Joe,’ she whispered in a voice as light as the breeze. ‘It was my fault. It was because of me that he did what he did!’
‘Leah . . .’ I remonstrated.
‘Listen to me, Joe.’ She stared up at me, determination in her large brown eyes. ‘That night, do you remember the night he attacked you, and I beat him off? Well, I told him that I never wanted to see him again, that I hoped he’d drop dead. And I told him we were to be married by Zur-zellian the following day.’
She was silent for long seconds, then went on, ‘Don’t you see, Joe? If I hadn’t told him that, then . . . then he wouldn’t have gone across to the island to disrupt the ceremony. And Bobby and Gabby and Rona and Satch and Zur-zellian . . . they’d all be alive, and you and me might have . . .’
I just stared at her as silver tears coursed down her cheeks, and I thought of our time together after the fire, her silence, her reluctance to talk about what had happened.
She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t bring myself to tell you during those last weeks, Joe, and for all these years I’ve lived with the guilt.’
There was nothing I could say; there are times when words are redundant. As I stared at the woman I had loved a long time ago, I realised that only gestures remained, now, to show her that I was sorry, and that I cared.
We stood by the glade, our arms about each other, as the transporter’s siren sounded that the time had come for us to leave.
* * * *
|
J |
onathon Fairman had worked all night on the sculpture, less from the artist’s fastidious need to attain perfection than from a real fear of what sleep might bring. To work, to create something solid which before had not existed, was a far preferable option than to submit to the nightmares which had haunted his nights of late.
He reached out, felt the malleable wood begin to warm to his touch. He closed his eyes and concentrated, attempting to project the emotion which would bend the timber to the desired shape. He opened his eyes and watched the wood dimple beneath his fingertips, then stepped back and viewed the piece as a whole. He could imagine the critics’ reaction. They would declare that once again Jonathon Fairman had created a lasting work of art - and he had to admit that in form the piece was very nearly perfect. It showed the figure of a woman rising from the substance of the alien wood like someone emerging, explosively, from an ocean. It was the latest in a series of six he was in the process of completing. Each showed a female figure - his wife, Aramantha - trying to escape from the medium of which she was forever a part. On the face of each sculpture could be seen an expression of increasing agony. Visually the pieces were a success, but for Fairman they failed to work on the emotional level.
For perhaps the hundredth time that month he passed along the line of sculptures, pausing from time to time to caress a flank, a limb, to match his wife’s star-spread fingers with his own - and each time, although he did feel deep within him some stirring of the emotion he had tried to communicate, the pieces added nothing, no deeper strata of feeling, to their visual aspect.
He had hoped that each might complement the other, that the viewer, after beholding the’ poignancy of Aramantha’s attempt to escape, would be rocked, when touching the pieces, by the terror and the anguish. But the emotional content of the sculptures was vapid, weak simulations of the emotions his wife had no doubt experienced. Oh, that might pass muster with critics who had never in their safe, cloistered existences experienced any emotion, stronger than envy, but in his heart Fairman knew that he had failed to do justice to his wife’s ultimate experience - and he knew, also, why. How could he ever hope to create a meaningful work of art from Aramantha’s death when he had for so long denied the event?
He paced across the room and paused beneath the arching crystal dome that covered his penthouse studio. He stared through his grizzled reflection and looked out over the wings of his timber mansion to the greensward sloping towards the edge of the cliff, and the Pacific ocean beyond. Upon his return to Earth, Fairman had sought to sequester himself far from human habitation, away from prying eyes. He had almost succeeded.
As ever, though, a phalanx of floating cameras hovered, with mute mechanical propriety, just beyond the fence that demarcated his property. Trained his way, they hoped to catch a glimpse of him in the throes of creation. Beyond the fence, on the jade road, a small crowd of lost souls had gathered, as they did every day, in a bid to see the great artist taking a stroll around his grounds. Every day he took pleasure in disappointing them.
Two years ago he had returned from Tartarus to find himself feted as one of the greatest artists in the Expansion. On Tartarus, for the past forty years, he and Aramantha had shut themselves away on a remote island off the uninhabited western continent, turning out their respective works, despatching them to their agent on Earth, and ignoring all reviews and critical reaction good or bad. They had guessed that they were successful, or at least popular, by the size of the cheques forwarded by their agent - monies which they had used to fund galleries and cultural galas on their adopted homeworld.
After Aramantha’s death Fairman had fled to Earth, to what he hoped would be a quiet, anonymous life on the rugged coastline of the Pacific North-west. But the illusion had been shattered by the battery of cameras and the legion of reporters, both human and mechanical, awaiting him at the spaceport. He took refuge in the first mansion he found up for sale, occupied himself with his work and ignored all requests to appear in public.
Fairman yawned as a wave of fatigue swept over him. He crossed to the bureau, slid open a drawer and withdrew a small silver casket. He carefully opened the carved lid. A few grains of silverdrift had collected in the corners of the box - all that remained of the drug on which he was dependent, and not enough to dispel the dreams should he choose to sleep. For the past month he had rationed his nightly dose, to the point, for the past three nights, where the drug had been ineffective against the onslaught of the nightmare images.
A part of him knew that for the good of his art he should give rein to what the monsters of his subconscious were trying to tell him, but that part of him which wanted to retain its sanity cowered at the thought.
He was wondering what had delayed Karrel - he had promised to call at noon - when he recognised the gothic lines of his friend’s customised flier in the air above the greensward.
He watched the artist land the vehicle on the deck outside the studio. Seconds later the young man stepped through the sliding door and stopped in his tracks, something histrionic in his affectation of surprise.
‘Good God! You’ve actually . . . You said you were thinking of . . .’ Words failing him, Karrel circled the six statues with the circumspection of someone afraid that they might come to life and flee. ‘Magnificent,’ he said beneath his breath.
Karrel was perhaps half Fairman’s age, around fifty, and still retained a youthful head of golden hair and handsome, well-defined features. He was a third-rate artist, very much in vogue, and he considered himself privileged to do Fairman’s errands - even if those errands included supplying the famous artist with silverdrift.
Wide-eyed, Karrel looked across the studio at Fairman. He indicated the sculptures. ‘May I . . . ?’
‘If you must,’ Fairman muttered to himself, then aloud, ‘Why not?’
With reverence, with an almost palpable air of expectation that seemed to Fairman the next thing to parody, Karrel laid a hand on the first statue.
He closed his eyes. His features melted into an expression of rapture.
Fairman cleared his throat. He wanted nothing more than to get down to business.
Almost reluctantly, the younger artist withdrew his hand. ‘A masterpiece,’ he whispered. ‘Truly a masterpiece.’
Fairman snorted. ‘I’m not happy with it. It’s lacking something.’
Karrel pouted judiciously. ‘Well . . . perhaps it could do with a little refinement, the slightest of tweaks?’
‘A great twist, more like,’ Fairman said. ‘Anyway, less of that. How are you? Are you working?’
‘Never better, and I’ve landed the commission for the mural at the Diego starport.’
Fairman was nodding to himself. How such mundane trivialities - or rather the seriousness with which people took them - sickened him to his marrow.
‘Speaking of which . . .’ he said.
‘Murals?’
‘Starports.’
Karrel looked uncomfortable. He dabbed at his nose with a perfumed kerchief, feigning interest in the last statue.
Fairman had entrusted the artist to obtain not just his usual monthly supply of silverdrift, but two kilos of the stuff. That much would last him for five years, and no one addicted to the drug had survived any longer.
‘Well?’ Fairman demanded.
‘I’m afraid there was a slight - how shall I put it? - difficulty.’
‘You failed to obtain a bulk consignment?’
‘You might say that,’ Karrel murmured. ‘Not that I didn’t try. Just last week my contact at the ‘port promised me the two kilograms.’
‘So how much did you manage to get?’ Fairman asked.
Karrel shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I ... I made alternative enquiries. There are other drugs, miracle philtres that will provide the same relief as silverdrift.’
‘You are mistaken, my friend. There is no substitute for ‘drift. I’ve tried everything from natural drugs to manufactured substances.’ He paused. ‘How much did you obtain?’
‘My contact could lay his hands on not one grain. The danger involved . . . The TWC authorities have declared the drug a banned substance.’ Karrel stood beside the statues, seventh in line and just as immobile.
Fairman found a chair and sat down, a finger to his lips. What a fine irony it was that Tartarus was the sole source of silverdrift. If only he had known, when resident on Tartarus, that one day he would be dependent on the drug . . .
‘Very well. No doubt you did your best.’ His calm words did not reflect his mental turmoil.
Karrel ventured a smile. ‘In the event, it might prove a blessing. Silverdrift kills. In five years . . . The galaxy cannot afford to lose an artist of your standing.’
Fairman wanted to tell the man to shut up. Karrel did not have the merest inkling of what the ‘drift meant to him, how only the nightly balm of the cool sparkling powder made his existence bearable.
Instead, he merely gestured wearily. ‘Forgive me, Karrel. I have work to do.’ He indicated the line of statues.
Karrel backed from the chamber, promising that he would look in upon Fairman at the soonest, that if he should need anything, anything at all . . .
Then he was gone. Fairman heaved a great sigh.
He positioned his chair before the curving face of the dome and stared out at the early evening landscape. The sun was setting on the oceanic horizon, laying down orange and scarlet strata. The red dome of the sun reminded him of the coming night. He wondered how he might see it through with no ‘drift to assuage his fevered mind.
He had at one time considered doing without the drug voluntarily, so that he would become cognizant of the terrors of his past that were locked within his subconscious. He was an artist, was he not? Why keep that great storehouse locked - even if its content proved too harrowing to bear? If he was to produce art out of life, which after all should be the tenet of all great artists, then surely all experience was valid?
But over the months his nightmares had grown ever more terrible, and he found himself unable to cope with the ghastly images within his head. He had steadily increased his intake of silverdrift, until a week ago when it began to run low and he had had to ration himself.
Three nights ago, on a quarter of his usual dosage, he had been tortured by a procession of unbearable visions. All featured Aramantha in agony, begging him not to let her die. In the nightmare he had been visited by pangs of guilt almost physical in their agony. He’d awoken screaming, covered in sweat, still haunted by images of Aramantha, their villa on Tartarus, and the rugged Grecian landscape of the island.
Two nights ago he had dreamed that he himself had brought about Aramantha’s death, and a sense of guilt had haunted him all the following day.
Last night he had remained awake, working, determined not to give in to sleep. He wondered now if he could remain awake a second night, or a third? And how soon might it be before his subconscious unburdened its freight of anguish upon his conscious self in the form of hypnagogic hallucinations just as terrible as his nightmares?
A little over two years ago Aramantha had contracted a rare terminal disease, and had spent her final months on the island with Fairman. A week after her death, Fairman had left Tartarus and returned to Earth. Then, not long after his arrival, he had employed the services of a neurosurgeon to edit his memories of Aramantha’s illness. The agony, obviously, had been too much to bear.
The process was illegal - for obvious reasons. Memories could never be comprehensively erased. Sooner or later they re-emerged, warped and deformed, as Fairman’s were doing now.
A part of him was curious to know exactly what had happened during Aramantha’s last months - even though he was aware he would probably regret the knowledge; after all, he had thought it wise to have it edited in the first place. The note he had written to himself had informed him of all he thought he should know: ‘Aramantha died on Tartarus on the 40th of St Jude’s month. You had your memory wiped of this, and her illness, to save your sanity. Let it be.’
As the sun sank from sight and the stars appeared in the night sky one by one, Fairman repeatedly caught himself on the brink of sleep. He awoke for perhaps the fifth time with a start, and was wondering how he might keep himself awake when he became aware of a dark shape against the luminous starfield.
At first he thought it was yet another of the floating cameras, though larger. Then he saw that it had wings. Could it be the latest creation of one of the gene-artisans who lived a hundred kilometres down the coast, a DNA-created replica of a bald eagle or condor, extinct these past thousand years?
Then, as the creature drew closer, his heart began a laboured pounding. He realised that he was sweating. There could be no doubting it - unless this was just another peculiar facet of his dreams: the creature advancing through the air towards his mansion was none other than a Tartarean Messenger. He experienced a quick stab of panic at the sight of the creature, and wondered why? Why?
The delicate Messenger descended to the deck and hovered an inch above the surface, its great wings a blur of shimmering motion. It proceeded in light, tip-toe steps towards the entrance, its long wings coming together behind its back.
It spoke into the receiver, ‘Monsieur Fairman?’ Its voice was light, piping.
Fairman cleared his throat. ‘The same. Your duty?’
‘To relay to you a message.’
He hesitated. ‘From Tartarus?’
The Messenger blinked. It was bald, as pure in facial feature as a child. It wore a silver bodysuit, from the shoulder blades of which its wings sprouted on wrist-thick columns of cartilage. The wings themselves were not feathered, but as diaphanous as fine lace, like those of a dragonfly.
‘Where else?’ the Messenger responded at last. ‘Perhaps, if you let me in, we might talk further?’
Fairman spoke, and the door slid open. The Messenger stepped through, followed by the length of its wings. The creature stood within reach of Fairman before the transparent membranes, fully three metres long, cleared the entrance. This close, he was amazed at how small the creature was - the apex of its shaven pate barely reached his chest.
For all he knew the Messenger to be of human stock, there was something nevertheless alien about it: the pale skin, large eyes and thin-lipped mouth - though, at the same time, it was not without a strange, severe beauty. Fairman detected the slight rise of breasts beneath the bodysuit; it was female, then.
‘I come from Tartarus; generally, from the western continent, specifically from the isle of Lyssia.’
Fairman experienced a second’s disbelief. ‘I lived there,’ he whispered, then quickly, ‘Who sent you?’
‘I was summoned by the ghost of your wife, Monsieur Fairman.’
‘No!’ What cruel joke was being played on him? ‘My wife?’
‘She haunts the western peninsula of the isle. I was traversing the archipelago when she manifested herself and called a summons. Messengers ignore no summons, especially those of a ghost.’
Fairman was shaking his head. The western peninsula? He recalled the amphitheatre, what he and Aramantha had seen and heard there. Could it be? His heart leaped at the thought.
‘Aramantha wishes to talk to you,’ the Messenger said.
He considered Aramantha, her alleged ghost. Then it came to him that on the island neighbouring Lyssia was a forest of silver trees . . .
‘But a ship—?’ he began.
‘Boats leave Diego daily, bound for Tartarus,’ the Messenger said. ‘I have made arrangements.’
‘And you?’
‘I will accompany you, of course. It is my destiny to go with the glory of Tartarus when the sun blows in twenty years.’
Fairman looked across the studio at the six statues. ‘Give me a little time. I have one or two tasks to complete.’
The Messenger inclined her head. She turned, mindful of her wings, and processed herself through the exit.
Fairman approached the sculptures. He would meld them back into the block from which they had come. He did not wish these sub-standard pieces to stand as his last work, should tragedy befall him on Tartarus.
* * * *
The landing on Tartarus suggested that much had changed. In the past the transition from omega-space to planetary atmosphere had been achieved without the passengers’ realisation. This time, the ancient barque bucked and juddered as it entered the orbit of Tartarus, then was rattled almost to the point of disintegration by the planet’s overheated troposphere. The touchdown itself seemed more of a drop from a great height, which jarred Fairman’s bones and left the ship creaking ominously.
An even greater shock was in store when the ramp was lowered and the passengers, with Fairman and the tiny Messenger in their wake, swarmed out. The surrounding hills of Baudelaire, once emerald green, were parched and straw-coloured now.
In the sky, dominating and oppressing the landscape, was the cause. The sun - once the size of an orange held at arm’s length - filled a quarter of the heavens, a blinding white disc.
Fairman selected a flier from the port hire service, hoisted it into the searing, white expanse of the sky and banked away in the direction of the western continent. The Messenger insisted on accompanying him in the flier. The creature claimed it was her duty to take him to she who had summoned him, and though Fairman wished to travel alone - something about the Messenger still troubling him - he was too exhausted to argue after the uncomfortable voyage, too apprehensive as to what he might find on the island. She folded her wings and sat beside him in silence.
They flew over the sluggish sea of Marea, the equatorial ocean that stretched for two thousand kilometres between the densely populated landmass they had just left and the sequestered western continent of Kithira. The heat was such that the sea gave off foul-smelling veils of steam; it seemed that the higher they flew, the hotter the air became, and Fairman chose to keep the flier at low altitude, preferring the reeking discharge to the wilting heat.
Fairman reclined on the comfortable control couch before the bulbous viewscreen, the side-panels open to admit what little breeze their passage generated. He had to fight to keep from falling asleep; repeatedly he awoke with a start and busied himself needlessly with minor adjustments to the controls.
Although sedated for the three day duration of the voyage from Earth, he had managed only a few hours of genuine sleep, and predictably these were haunted by familiar images. Prominent were those of his wife, her handsome Latin features twisted into a mask of agony, her body, once fulsome, reduced now to parlous skin and bone. More terrifying had been the mental anguish that Fairman had experienced: the sense of guilt, of hopelessness and grief that had threatened to take his sanity.
He had emerged from sedation just before transition, and the realisation of where he was, and the promise of the silverdrift, had served to push back the horror and give him hope.
The Messenger perched beside him on the passenger couch, leaning forward, her posture suggesting an attitude of observation, an eagerness to arrive at journey’s end.
They had spoken hardly a word to each other since their communication at his mansion. Fairman had wanted to ask her more about her meeting with Aramantha’s ghost, but had found the creature’s silence, her absorption in a reality that seemed at many removes from his own, a powerful deterrent to enquiry.
Now, as a roundabout way of finding out what he wanted to know, he determined to ask the creature about herself.
‘Why is it that your Guild has vowed to remain on Tartarus?’
The Messenger turned her large dark eyes on him, as if deciding whether she should deign to reply.
‘We were created to communicate,’ she said, ambiguously.
‘Yes, but why?’
‘In the early days we were created to act as liaisons between the many castes of colonists who were forbidden, for reasons of etiquette, to speak to each other. Our wings, our eidetic memories, were designed to aid this function.’
‘And when the castes were no more?’
‘There were always tasks we could perform. Many of my forbears were bards, poets, reciters of the Tartarean sagas.’
‘And then, with the swelling of the sun, you again come into your own.’
‘That is so. And when the sun explodes, we will effect the final communication.’
Fairman stared at the childlike Messenger. ‘How so?’
‘On the day before the apocalypse we will gather at prearranged sites around Tartarus and end our lives of flesh. Then, when the sun blows, our collective consciousness will be fired outwards, our atoms will commingle with the cosmos, communicating with all sentient life in the galaxy, telling of our sacrifice, our elevation.’ The creature fell silent, as if contemplating this hallowed event.
Fairman shook his head, but remained silent. He wanted to point out to the fey being just what would happen, come the day of destruction. First, the breathable atmosphere of the planet would be burned up by the intensifying heat of the sun, the seas would boil and evaporate and all organic matter would ignite in a world-wide conflagration; then the photon sleet of the exploding sun would blast all that remained from the planet’s surface.
But he kept silent. The Messenger believed, and who was he to gainsay such faith with his cynical rationalisations?
If such things as ghosts did, indeed, exist . . .
Quite suddenly the mist lifted, and ahead Fairman made out the rocky bastion of Kithira’s coastline. Inland, a spectacular range of mountains rose against the great white orb of the sun. Fairman set the flier on a course parallel to the shore, heading towards the southern seas where the continent stuttered to an end in a diminishing chain of archipelagic islets.
He cleared his throat. ‘You said you were summoned by the ghost of Aramantha? How did this happen?’
The creature spread her delicate fingers. ‘In ages past, long before humans came to Tartarus, long before even the Slarque walked the planet, others lived here, aliens from another star - the Tharseans. They did not die as we do, but lived on as ghosts - or rather as what we call ghosts. The phantoms of this alien race still live here, and occasionally they are joined by human ghosts, chosen by the legion of the Tharseans. Aramantha Fairman is one such.’
‘And this . . . this ghost - it summoned you?’
‘She summoned me, said that she wished to speak with you. That is all I know.’ The Messenger fell silent.
Fairman sat back in his couch and contemplated what she had said. He considered Aramantha, and what they had witnessed, more than once, on the island where they had made their home.
Almost every evening, after a long day’s work, they would take bread and cheese, fruit and wine, and leave the villa. They would walk until they reached a suitable location, and eat and drink and enjoy the view, talk about their work and what they hoped to produce.
A favourite place, to which they returned again and again, was the amphitheatre on the western peninsula, a fan-shaped banking of marble-like tiers overlooking the performance area beside the sea. The amphitheatre pre-dated the Slarque, and was said to be the work of the aliens who had made Tartarus their home aeons ago.
The mystique of the place was emphasised by the fact, or so Aramantha had claimed, that it was haunted. On perhaps a dozen occasions during their forty years on the island they had heard strange sounds issue from the performance area of the amphitheatre - the occasional cry, of pain or joy they could not tell, a string of what might have been words in an unknown language, lofty and declarative, and once, briefly, the sound of someone or something weeping. At least, Aramantha had anthropomorphised them so. Although Fairman had heard them too, he had rationalised the sounds, ascribed them to freak effects of the wind, or the amplification of an animal noise by the excellent acoustics of the ruin. And anyway, the incidents had been so infrequent, and then so brief, that Fairman had tended to pay them little attention beside the all-consuming passion for his wife and his work.
Harder to explain away, however, were the visual manifestations witnessed by Aramantha and himself. On two occasions - and these twenty years apart - they had both become aware of a fleet, shifting form in the warm night air. The first time, while drinking wine in the upper tiers of the amphitheatre, they had turned as one, just in time to see a rapid blur vanish from sight down in the performance area. Fairman had managed to convince himself that what he had seen was nothing more than either the movement of a wild animal, or a dust-devil created by the warm night winds that came in off the sea.
The second incident had been more difficult to dismiss. They had approached the amphitheatre from the beach, a little drunk with wine, and stopped dead before they reached the performance area. To their right had appeared briefly - for perhaps five seconds, no more - a flickering, humanoid form, an arm raised in a gesture of valediction. Then it vanished, and Fairman and Aramantha had stared at each other as if to corroborate what each had seen.
‘The wine,’ he had muttered to himself.
And down the years, while Fairman had tended to minimise the import of the apparition - citing scientific rationalisations like hallucinations or sympathetic mental imagery - Aramantha convinced herself that the amphitheatre was indeed haunted. She had even produced a performance piece entitled, ‘The Phantom of the Isle’.
And now, if the Messenger was to be believed, she herself had returned as a phantom.
* * * *
They sped south, on a course parallel with the coast. The inland mountains gave way to broad plains, once green but burned ochre now by the ministrations of the sun. The gentle sea lapped at isolated coves and beaches, incessant activity that had gone on from time immemorial, and which few human eyes had seen - and which, in twenty years, would be no more. Such beauty, Fairman thought, such innocent beauty destroyed by unimaginably vast forces.
The sun was a great, nebulous orb balanced on the horizon. It was setting, though the process would take hours, and in its wake would not come night as such but a bloody and baleful twilight. Fairman felt himself nodding off, but fought the urge.
Hours later, the flier on automatic, he did finally doze, only to be awoken after what seemed like minutes by a frightful nightmare image. He thrust a dagger into Aramantha’s heart, and then stood back in horror, while all around him in the amphitheatre spectators denounced him as a traitor.
He sat upright with a small cry, and was rewarded by the sight of the archipelago ahead, a series of evenly spaced islands diminishing over the bow of the sea. The panorama, a duplication of the scene he had beheld many times over the years, brought tears to his eyes.
He lowered the flier so that it was wave-hopping, and one by one passed the uninhabited islands, dark against the broad disc of the setting sun. Two hours later he came upon the penultimate island of the archipelago. He decelerated, planed the flier in across a sheltered cove and settled it on the beach.
The Messenger frowned at the island. ‘But this is not Lyssia,’ she said.
‘No - there is . . . I have business to complete here, before . . .’ Reluctant to discuss his addiction, he quickly pulled two canisters from beneath the couch. He set off up the beach, towards the forest which covered the island.
The heat of the sun scorched his skin and seared his lungs with every breath. He recalled the long evenings he had spent with Aramantha on their island, the cooling sea breezes which had tempered the heat of the day.
It was quiet within the forest, and cooler; high overhead the foliage filtered the light into slanting columns, through which motes of sparkling dust eddied and swirled on their lazy descent from the silver trees to the forest floor. Fairman took a deep breath, and was aware almost instantly of the intoxicating effect of the unprocessed drug. The dust coated the mucous membranes of his nose and mouth with a sweet, perfumed taste, rich with the promise of dream-free sleep.
He and Aramantha had taken their boat to this island perhaps once a year, stayed for a day and night during which they had swum in the rock pools, made love on the moss-carpeted forest floor, and become blissfully high on the air-borne stimulant. Taken this way, so infrequently, it was neither addictive nor harmful.
He came upon a shallow dell in the forest, filled with a drift of the silver spores. He knelt and scooped handfuls into the canisters. The dust coruscated in his palm, reflecting the light of the setting sun like diamond filings. He filled the canisters and replaced their caps. He judged that he had sufficient silverdrift to last him five years. His only thought was that it would make his existence bearable again, his nights tolerable ... So what if in five, six years the cumulative effect of the substance would rot the synapses of his brain, scale the byways of his ganglia with its virulent chemical crud, and bring about motor neurone dysfunction and rapid death?
He returned to the beach and stowed away the canisters, the Messenger watching him with a neutral expression. He lifted the flier and headed across the sea towards Lyssia. Within minutes, emotion blocking his throat, he powered up the white beach and came to a halt outside the studio-villa he had shared with Aramantha.
He climbed out and stood in the fine sand, staring up at the two-tier edifice. The Messenger was beside him, yawning and stretching, luxuriating in the heat of the sun.
‘The ghost is—’
‘I know,’ Fairman snapped. ‘In the amphitheatre.’
The Messenger stared at him with wide eyes, then nodded silently.
‘If you don’t mind,’ he said, ‘I’d rather be alone.’ Before she could reply, he set off up the sloping beach towards the villa, relieved that the Messenger made no move to follow him.
He walked through the rose garden, neglected and overgrown these past two years, and climbed the steps to the second level deck. The sliding door was not locked. He passed inside.
Unable to recall how he had left the villa, he had expected bare rooms made anonymous by the removal or storage of their possessions. He was shocked to find that the room was as he recalled it from when he had lived here. He looked about him, saw a few of Aramantha’s favourite pieces - a portrait of herself she had commissioned from a friend, a landscape of the mountainous southern continent they had both loved. The sight of these objects now brought back a flood of painful memories. He realised that all that was missing from the scene was Aramantha herself.
He hurried quickly through the lounge and into his old studio. This room was bare, empty. He had taken his own tools and materials with him to Earth; Aramantha had worked in another studio on the ground floor. He resolved not to revisit that room.
He took the spiral staircase to the garden behind the house - the sloping rockery in which Aramantha had lovingly reared her favourite blooms. He strolled up the zigzag path, and at the top of the garden sat down on the bench which overlooked the villa and, beyond it, the sea.
How many times had they sat side by side on this very bench, discussing life, their work, art in general? Now Aramantha’s absence was hard to bear, a physical pain within his chest. He could hear her voice, smell her scent, see her face radiant in the light of the setting sun. He was aware that his cheeks were wet with tears.
One of his final memories of Aramantha was of her returning from her physician in Baudelaire. For months previously she had complained of listlessness, frequent migraines, and eventually she had set aside her natural mistrust of the medical profession and, on Fairman’s behest, consulted a doctor.
The diagnosis was that she was suffering from a rare neurological disease - Fairman could not recall the precise nature of her illness, as he had had this edited from his memory - and had only months to live. It had been a vicious blow that came at them without warning; they had been looking forward to another fifty years in each other’s company. They had never even dreamed of one being parted from the other, still less parted by a fatal disease in this relatively disease-free age.
Two months after the diagnosis, Aramantha had died, though he retained memories only of the first month. It had been a limbo period of disbelief, of anger and grief. They had had to readjust themselves to the knowledge of her eventual end, redefine their relationship. Fairman had been solicitous of his sick wife and had cosseted her - which Aramantha had not wanted. In death, as in life, she demanded to be treated as an equal, with no sympathy, no special pleading or dispensation. Fairman recalled that she had worked hard on her final project, which she had kept secret from him with the promise that she would tell him what she was doing in due course. But if she had ever let him in on her secret, then he’d had that wiped from his consciousness too.
Not for the first time he wondered why he had undergone the memory erasure programme. He had loved Aramantha as he had loved no one else, and the knowledge of her illness had nearly destroyed him - but others had suffered the loss of loved ones without resorting to memory erasure. He had lived all his adult life with the philosophy that if he was to strive to create art from the reality around him, then all experience was worthwhile. Why had he not learned from the tragedy, transcended Aramantha’s death and grown in mental stature like the artist he claimed to be? What had been so terrible about his wife’s end that he should have had it excised from his mind?
He stood suddenly and walked from the garden, up the incline to the greensward that was the highest point on the island. It was a stroll of thirty minutes to the coast and the amphitheatre there, but Fairman made it in half that time. The combination of exertion and anticipation, and the heat, had him sweating as he came upon the amphitheatre, paused on the top tier and stared down into the performance area. He could almost make-believe that Aramantha was at his side, sharing the magnificence of the view.
He recalled the phenomena he and Aramantha had witnessed here all those years ago. More than anything he wanted to accept that somehow, in some way, his beloved had outlived death - but how could he forego the tenets of a life of rationalism because now, in extremis, some bereaved part of his psyche needed to believe in the impossible?
He walked down the tiered steps, taking the descent with care. The temperature had increased, as if the shape of the amphitheatre had captured and contained the heat, like a cauldron. Ahead, the upper hemisphere of the setting sun spanned the embrasure between the headlands.
He reached the performance area, then stood still, a lone actor on an empty stage awaiting the rise of the curtain. He looked about him, at the dizzying incline of the tiers on three sides. He felt as though he were being watched by a Thousand invisible spectators.
He realised then that he was weeping, and when he spoke his voice cracked with emotion. ‘Aramantha?’
He turned at the suggestion of some sound behind him, and tried to focus on the air between him and the banked tiers. The feeling that he was being watched intensified.
‘Jonathon . . .’ The sound reached his ears softly, the faintest breath.
He spun around, seeing nothing. ‘Aramantha!’ His heart was thudding.
He heard something, the merest whisper, what might have been: ‘You have come.’
He said her name again. He stared at a point in the air three metres before him, from where he imagined the voice had issued.
And there, before the rising tiers, Fairman made out a shimmering, insubstantial form - that, unmistakably, of a woman. Although the strata of the tiers could be seen through the phantom figure, he could make out the strong, handsome features, the piled dark hair, of Aramantha.
She shimmered before him, an arm outstretched.
‘Jonathon - you came. I wished to talk to you, to ensure that you were well, that I was happy.’ Her voice, exactly as he remembered it, echoed in the air around him, as if emanating from the stones of the amphitheatre.
Fairman regained control of his breathing. He found his voice. ‘What . . . what are you?’
The ghost laughed, the sound so familiar. ‘Jonathon, Jonathon . . . you were ever the rationalist. You could never bring yourself to believe in the ghosts that haunted the arena.’ Aramantha gestured, a quick spreading of her fingers he recalled so well.
‘What am I? Am I a ghost? Am I the Aramantha you loved and lost?’ Her expression, hovering before him like a faded super-imposition over the tiers, frowned as if in concentration.
‘Strictly speaking, I am not Aramantha - but a continuation of her. I have her memories, her personality and beliefs.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Then again,’ the phantom went on, seeming to ignore him, ‘perhaps I am Aramantha. How does one distinguish between an individual entity like your living wife, and something that is an exact copy which began where the original left off?’
‘You’re speaking in riddles!’ Fairman cried.
Aramantha - he could call the spectre by no other name - sighed. She gestured around her at the amphitheatre. ‘This place, and others like it across Tartarus, was built millions of years ago by the Tharseans. You recall the myths, the tales told by the Messengers of the proud star-faring race that rose to prominence and became extinct before Earth even came into existence. They built many wonders on many worlds, but perhaps none so great as this . . .’ She paused. ‘I suppose you could call it an eschatarium. This is a place where the dead come back to life, or at least where the identities of the dead are stored, living out their own abstract existences.’
‘Here?’
‘In the very fabric of the stones which constitute the arena is enmeshed a technology so miniature as to be undetectable by the clumsy sciences of humanity. This is where the dead of the Tharseans reside. You and I witnessed these phantoms, though much faded and atrophied by the passage of time. The aliens brought their loved ones here to die, and duly they were absorbed into the technology of the amphitheatre, granted an extended existence - depending, of course, upon one’s beliefs.’
Fairman was shaking his head. ‘I ... I find it all very hard to believe.’
Aramantha spread her arms wide, a shaft of dying sunlight falling through her torso. ‘Believe,’ she said. ‘Behold and believe.’
Fairman stared at her shimmering form. He said at last, ‘The Tharseans brought their loved ones here to die? Then how did you come to be ... ?’
‘I was lucky, Jonathon. The play - my final performance.’
He echoed her words.
She laughed. ‘Surely you cannot have forgotten? The event we enacted upon this stage? The last act of Julius and Hippolyte.’
‘Aramantha . . . when I returned to Earth, the grief ... it was obviously to much for me to bear.’ And he told her of how he had had his memory of the final weeks erased from his consciousness.
He shook his head, some detail beyond his understanding. ‘But if I agreed to enact the sequence with you . . .’ He recalled the scene in the Martian epic, in which Julius passed his dying lover the chalice of poison. Presumably, then, he had played this part in Aramantha’s ultimate performance. He could understand that he would have been duly grief-stricken - but to the extent where he would have had the memory wiped from his mind? ‘If I agreed to take the part of Julius, why did I have the memory wiped?’
Aramantha was shaking her head. ‘Jonathon, Jonathon . . . What torture you must have passed through before the memory erasure.’
‘But why? I don’t understand! Why could I not live with the memory, grieve and come to some reconciliation of what had happened? Surely to have you take the poison was preferable to seeing you waste away in pain?’
Aramantha was regarding him with dark, compassionate eyes. ‘Jonathon - I think that it was not what happened in this arena that you wished to forget, but what transpired later.’
His mouth was dry. ‘What?’ he managed at last.
Aramantha said, ‘What do you recall, Jonathon? What is your last memory of our time together?’
He shook his head to clear his thoughts. ‘You were ill - very ill. It was a month after the diagnosis. I was nursing you. On good days we’d sit in the garden and talk. You were planning some new project, but you wouldn’t tell me what.’ He could not go on without weeping. He let the silence lengthen, then said, ‘That’s my last recollection of our time together - sitting in the garden.’
Aramantha smiled at him. ‘I decided that I didn’t want to let the disease run its course. I didn’t want to waste away, physically and mentally. Julius and Hippolyte has always been one of my favourites, and its theme of love, illness and mortality seemed suited to my situation. I told you what I wanted - to enact the final scene, just the two of us in the amphitheatre, and you agreed. We prepared for a week. We decided not to record this particular performance, that it would be our own private affair. We chose a day, and that day came and we played out the scene. You passed me the chalice and I drank, and I died in your arms, and yet miraculously I did not die. I was . . . reborn, renewed, without the pain that had wracked me so. I was the first sentient being to take advantage - albeit unwittingly - of the eschatarium for millennia. I became part of a ... I suppose you could call it a memory bank, stocked with the identities of the Tharseans, alien but so similar to humans in many respects. By the time I learned to manifest myself, days later, I saw your flier leave the island. I was inconsolable. You had said you would stay on until the final evacuation, and I had hoped that you might revisit the amphitheatre so that we might be reunited. Only later did I find out why you left so soon . . .
‘We are in contact with the Messengers, and one of their guild told me what had occurred to make you flee the planet so precipitously.’
Fairman felt weak. ‘What happened?’ he asked.
‘Two days after my death, a Messenger arrived at the villa, from Baudelaire. A solar pulse had made radio communications impossible. The Messenger had a communiqué from my physician, regarding my diagnosis. My doctor had sent my case notes and biopsies off-planet, seeking a second opinion. A doctor on Avalon, a specialist in xeno-biological maladies, questioned my physician’s findings, suggested that I had a less severe form of the disease which might respond well to treatment. The Messenger had come to tell me to return immediately to Baudelaire, to begin the cure. Of course, by this time it was too late. When you heard what the Messenger had come to tell you . . .’
Aramantha reached out a hand to him. ‘Jonathon, my poor Jonathon. Is it any wonder you left Tartarus, had your memories erased?’
Fairman found his way to the nearest tier and sat down. He could not recall what the Messenger had told him, of course, could not recall the grief and pain he must have experienced then - but on hearing now what had happened, two years ago, he realised the anguish he must have suffered, understood now the terrible irony of their tragedy.
Aramantha reached out to him, her hand passing through his arm. Fairman told himself that he detected warmth.
‘Jonathon, do not grieve. See for yourself, look at me - can you deny that I am reborn? I live, Jonathon, I experience. Rejoice in that fact!’
He smiled. He tried to see past his own loss and apprehend Aramantha’s resurrection.
‘But when the sun blows—’ he began.
Aramantha was smiling. ‘Oh, no, Jonathon. We cannot be harmed by the supernova. The technology that gives us awareness is so small that it cannot be affected by the cataclysm. We will ride forever through the galaxy on a wondrous wave of light.’
Fairman stared at her. ‘With the guild of Messengers?’ he asked.
‘With the guild,’ she said, ‘and whoever else wishes to join us.’
* * * *
Fairman returned to the beach.
The Messenger was perched upon the hood of the flier, flexing her great gossamer membranes. They swept back and forth and Fairman was fanned by wafts of warm, displaced air.
“You found your wife?’ the Messenger asked.
‘I found her ghost,’ he replied.
‘And?’ The creature regarded him, head cocked. ‘Will you be joining us in our glorious ascent?’
Without answering, Fairman turned and stared across the ocean. The sun had set, and overhead the night sky flickered with the vestiges of its fiery radiation.
He had pondered long after the phantom’s request, but something had made him decline her offer, some residual cynicism, or perhaps cowardice, or even the desire to create a work of art to stand as a statement of what he had learned in the amphitheatre.
On beating wings, the Messenger rose vertically into the air, legs dangling. ‘Farewell, Fairman,’ she called.
He waved. ‘Farewell, Messenger.’
He watched the creature rise into the air until she was no more than a tiny crucifix, riding high. Then he boarded the flier, turned it on its axis and headed out to sea, a scintillating cloud of silverdrift trailing in his wake.
* * * *
|
T |
here was a spectacular aurora in the early hours of the morning, a dancing sheet of magnesium-white light which illuminated the night sky and brought a premature daylight to the darkside of Tartarus Major.
The flare awoke Katerina from a dream about her brother, and it seemed a long time before she could get back to sleep. She woke again when the rapid increase in temperature indicated that the sun was up, and she was instantly aware of noise in the street outside: the loud discontent of a mob. From research she’d conducted before arriving on Tartarus, she knew that the flares always provoked civilian unrest, riots the result of genuine fear that the supernova had come fifteen years too soon, and a desire by a minority to take advantage of the chaos to loot and pillage. As she took a cold shower, then dressed in her near-weightless tropical garb, she listened to the chanting. She made out calls for the Director of the Evacuation Force to be replaced, mixed with cries from cultists that the end was nigh. She applied uv-block to her face, neck and arms, gathered her dreadlocks in the headband which also contained her camera, then left the hotel.
She activated the camera and filmed as she made her away across the city. The shots would provide good background and incidental detail for the documentary. Within minutes of leaving the hotel, she was roasting in her own juices. Sweat dribbled between her breasts and over her stomach. Despite the increasing heat, there were still angry crowds gathered at strategic positions in the city: government buildings, travel agencies, and the square of St Christopher in the centre of town. The racial mix on this continent was largely Latin and Asian; since her arrival two days ago she’d noticed only three or four blacks. She’d worried at first that she might fall victim to prejudice - some colony planets of her experience were notoriously racist - but on the whole she’d found the Tartareans friendly and helpful. She wondered if the natives were so preoccupied with ensuring their flight from the planet that they had little time to worry about things like the colour of a stranger’s skin.
She heard the sustained, muffled chanting well before she reached its source. As she approached the turning into the square, she knew the crowd would be surrounding the building that was her destination. She should have realised before she set out that the headquarters of the TWC Evacuation Force would be at the epicentre of the current unrest, and called ahead to ensure she could gain admittance.
Perhaps two or three hundred jeering citizens were held back behind a cordon of crash-barriers. Behind the barriers stood a line of armed security guards. The crowd hurled insults, and the occasional bottle or brick. Once or twice the guards fired over the heads of the protestors. They cowered as one for a moment, then gained in courage and spat curses and threats with even greater zeal.
Katerina pushed through the crowd and came up against the crash-barrier. She reached out and showed her press card to a stern-faced guard.
‘I’m meeting Director Magnusson at ten.’ She smiled at the guard and glanced around at the crowd. ‘I didn’t realise that half the city would want to see him, too.’
In other circumstances she might have interpreted a tacit racial insult in his uncompromising expression, but she reminded herself that she was on Tartarus now. ‘Not funny? Okay, I’m no comedian. But I am Katerina De Klien, and if Magnusson gets to know that you wouldn’t let me through he’ll have your balls for breakfast.’
Maybe he’d caught one of her shows and knew her tag, or her tone intimidated. He took her card, backed off and spoke quickly into a communicator, his glance shuttling between Katerina and her mug-shot on the card.
He came back to the barrier, returned her card and nodded. He even made to assist her, but Katerina ignored the proffered hand and jumped over by herself.
She strode across the cleared cobbles before the building, filming all the way. Another guard checked her identity before the big double doors, and yet another - a woman this time - behind a desk in the shivery-cold atmosphere of the air-conditioned foyer. The woman escorted her wordlessly along a corridor and into an elevator. They rode three floors and stepped out into an identical corridor, the sky blue carpet matching the officer’s uniform.
Across from the elevator was a polished wooden door. Katerina’s escort knocked, waited for a reply, then opened the door. She stood aside, gestured for Katerina to enter, then left her alone but for a dark-haired man seated behind a desk at the far end of a long, long room.
* * * *
‘Ms De Klien,’ Director Magnusson said in a voice so smooth it was almost a purr. ‘I’ve always wanted to ask you if your name was a pseudonym.’
Katerina took an instant dislike to the Director.
‘I often wondered if such a surname existed—’ he said.
‘It’s the professional name I took when I entered journalism,’ she snapped in a tone intended to show the Director that she had more important things to discuss.
She dropped into a big leather bucket seat without waiting to be invited, lay back and lodged a booted foot on her knee.
Magnusson, she decided, had the darting eyes of a libidinous pimp, and skin as pale as semen. She judged he was in his fifties, handsome in a washed-out, etiolated kind of way.
‘I know your work,’ he said. ‘One cannot get away from it, even on Tartarus. When we began work here, it was decided that the workers of the TWC should have the benefit of holovision, for their amusement. Though quite how your . . . shows . . . passed the censor, I shall never know.’
Katerina made a tired gesture. ‘Look, you don’t know how many times I’ve met jerks who hate my work. I’m used to getting shit, understand? You’re not going to intimidate me by telling me how much you hate my programmes.’
Magnusson gave a thin-lipped smile. ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I hate your work. In fact I’ve found a couple of your films quite compelling, if cynical and hopeless.’
‘You sound like my best critic.’
‘So when I heard you wanted to interview me, of course I was intrigued.’
Don’t be, Katerina thought, you’ll not like this one bit.
‘I take it you have a concealed camera? Is it running?’
‘Since I walked through the door, Director.’
Some people, on learning they were being filmed, lost their cool: Magnusson, to his credit, remained courteous and rather formal.
‘In that case perhaps you can tell me what your film will be about?’
‘Sure.’ Katerina sat forward in her chair, elbows on knees, and stared at the Director. ‘It’ll be a little different from my usual films. More personal, emotional. Critics have panned my work for lacking feeling, empathy. They say I’m cruel.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m not cruel, it’s just that I don’t moralise about what I point my camera at . . . Anyway, this film’ll be from the heart.’
She paused. ‘Imagine a young boy, an orphan in a government home, intelligent, ambitious. He reaches sixteen and skips Earth, goes to see the stars. He moves from world to world, working at whatever he can. Then he decides to join the TWC, undergoes the training, and three years later graduates. He’s posted to the Evacuation Force, sees his first active service on Salenko before the comet wipes out the planet. He does okay and he’s promoted, then sent to Tartarus Major. He works here in Baudelaire a couple of years, then gets shifted to the southern continent. On furlough back here, he comes down with some tropical disease and dies in three days . . . Just another TWC casualty, one among hundreds every year . . .’
Magnusson cleared his throat and interrupted. ‘If you could get to the point.’
Katerina gave him a long, silent stare. ‘You asked me what the film was about. I’m telling you.’ She closed her eyes, gathering her thoughts.
‘So . . .’ she went on, ‘the TWC tries to contact his next of kin. They know he had a sister, but they can’t trace her. Meanwhile, little sister grows up in the orphanage in Senegal. One day she gets the chance to quit the place - so she runs away and never goes back. She lives on the streets in Dakar, gets a few breaks, works hard and gets successful. She decides to try to trace her brother. She’s a journalist, and film-maker, so she has contacts and skills. After lots of hard work, she finds out the TWC version of the truth - the tropical disease bit, the dead-in-three-days-and-nothing-could-be-done story. So little sister grieves for the man she didn’t know, the brother she loved and hoped would one day come back for her.’
Katerina stopped there, staring at her clasped hands. Her long nails dug imprints into the skin.
‘Then last year I’m working on Mars on a big story about government corruption over the Olympus dam project, and I get a call from this guy who says he worked for the TWC and knew my brother on Tartarus. He wants to see me, so we arrange to meet in a bar in New Vilafranca. He tells me that my brother didn’t die of some tropical disease as it was widely believed. He says my brother left Apollinaire and flew south into the interior, not north to Baudelaire. Only, this guy says, he never came back. He disappeared and no trace of him or his flier was ever found.’
Katerina fell silent, counted to ten. She looked the Director directly in the eye. ‘My film is about my brother, and about what really happened, and why the TWC decided to cover up his disappearance with lies about some tropical disease.’
She knew, already, how she would use this footage, her little speech. She would intercut it with stills of Bobby as a young boy, with snippets from the video home-movie he’d left with an old girlfriend on Salenko.
Along with her slow-burning resentment, she felt that quickening visceral thrill of creating something lasting and worthwhile.
For someone who knew he was captured on camera, Magnusson was handling the situation with remarkable aplomb.
He sat back in his chair and stared levelly at Katerina, a judicial finger placed against pursed lips. ‘You tell an interesting story, Ms De Klien.’
‘It’s no “story”, Director. I have proof.’
She pulled a message disc from a pocket in her shirt. ‘It’s from Bobby, to me. His friend found it in Bobby’s locker when he heard from his commanding officer that Bobby had died in Baudelaire.’
‘That proves nothing,’ Magnusson began.
Katerina raised her eyebrows. ‘No?’ She tossed the disc across the desk, indicating the screen to Magnusson’s left. ‘Go on, access it,’ she said. ‘And don’t think about destroying it. I’ve taken the precaution of making copies.’
Magnusson took the disc, his expression rigidly neutral. He slipped the disc into the screen. Katerina had viewed the message many times before, but she could not bring herself to look upon the image of her brother now: the lean, crew-cut twenty-two-year-old, talking to the camera on the verandah of a hostel in Apollinaire.
She closed her eyes as his words spoke directly to her. ‘Kat, it’s Bob. It’s been a long time. I . . . This probably won’t ever get to you - like all the other discs I’ve made and never sent. I want to explain, Kat, apologise. I want to tell you how it was from my point of view, and then maybe you’ll begin to understand. I’m leaving for the interior tomorrow, hiring a flier and heading south—’
The screen blanked there, became static.
‘He terminated the message,’ Katerina explained. ‘Perhaps he meant to continue, but never got the chance.’ She stared at Magnusson. ‘Now, Director, are you going to tell me what really happened?’
Magnusson rotated his swivel chair, rose and strode to the window overlooking Baudelaire. He remained with his back to Katerina for long minutes. She kept her camera on him; the shot would create a nice period of tension in the film.
He turned and regarded her, forthright. ‘I’ll tell you what I can,’ he said, surprising her. ‘I don’t know if you came here out of genuine sentiment for your brother, or in the hope of making a popular film.’
‘I came here to find out what happened to Bobby,’ she said angrily, because Magnusson was uncomfortably close to the truth.
He regarded her for what seemed like a long time before saying, ‘As it happens, I can shed light on the mystery surrounding your brother.’
He returned to his desk and sat down. ‘Three years ago I was not in charge of operations here on Tartarus. A certain Director Haller had control of policy. Of course, when I took over from him I was apprised of the various activities, both overt and covert, that Haller had sanctioned.’ Magnusson paused. ‘How well up are you on the history of Tartarus?’
‘I did a little research.’
‘Did you read up on the southern tribes?’
She frowned. ‘The descendants of the original European colonists? I know of them, but next to nothing actually about them.’
Magnusson nodded. ‘Five years ago the policy of the TWC concerning the tribes of Iriarte, the southern continent, was to leave well alone. They had devolved a lot since their forbears took to the jungles. By our standards they were a primitive people, with correspondingly primitive belief systems. Certain tribes held that their destiny was with the planet, and even when informed of the impending supernova they refused the offer of evacuation and relocation on some analogue planet in the Thousand Worlds. They were reconciled to the thought of dying in the supernova - they even celebrated the coming conflagration. Haller estimated that some hundred thousand tribal peoples would perish if TWC policy remained as it was.’
‘So he intervened?’
‘He decided that he couldn’t sit idly by while an entire race of people went happily to their deaths, no matter what they believed. At that time, a large sector of Iriarte was out of bounds to the TWC. Off-world observers monitored TWC duties on Tartarus and ensured that they did not overstep their designated bounds.’
Katerina was one step ahead of him. ‘So Haller sent Bobby in to reconnoitre?’
Magnusson smiled. ‘He sounded out a few trusted officers. Your brother agreed with him about the fate of the tribes. Bobby was a good worker, very dedicated. Just over three years ago, Haller sent him with another officer to learn the views of certain tribes in the interior of the continent, to see if perhaps they might be persuaded to leave the planet. The mission was covert, of course. Haller risked losing his post if his superiors on Earth got wind he was contravening TWC policy.’
Magnusson stopped there, and the silence stretched. Katerina was aware of a tightness in her throat. At last she asked. ‘And what happened, Director?’
‘Their flier went down, some kind of systems failure. The wreckage was discovered a few days later.’
‘And Bobby?’
Magnusson seemed unable to meet her unwavering gaze.
‘His partner was discovered in the wreckage. He’d died instantly upon impact. There was evidence that Bobby had managed to extricate himself from the wreckage.’
‘What evidence?’ she whispered. It was imperative that she gather every detail, be in possession of every fact, no matter how trifling or insignificant.
Magnusson sighed, something in the sound indicating distaste. ‘If you must know, Ms De Klien, there was a lot of blood leading from the flier into the jungle.’
‘What happened to him?’
Magnusson shook his head. ‘His remains were never found. The area where they came down was dangerous and impenetrable. The rescue mission did all it could.’
‘Then he might still be alive?’
‘I’m sorry. That’s impossible. The jungles of Earth are hostile enough - those of the Iriarte are hell by comparison. Quite apart from the intense heat and lack of water, the diseases, the poisonous insects and plants . . . Expert opinion reckoned that he would have been lucky, even if fully fit, to have survived a day in those conditions.’
Katerina thought through what the Director had told her. ‘So Haller concocted the story about Bobby dying of a tropical disease in Baudelaire?’
‘He would have lost his command if the truth had reached the observers. He decided that a cover-up was necessary. Since then, TWC policy has changed as regards the southern tribes. We’re doing everything we can to facilitate their evacuation.’
‘Do you have information about where Bobby went down, maps of the area?’
‘You aren’t thinking of venturing into the interior? I wouldn’t advise—’
‘Director Magnusson, I don’t give up on a story halfway through. I want to find out exactly what happened to Bobby.’
Magnusson turned to the screen on his desk, typed a command into the keyboard set in the arm of his swivel chair. Seconds later a large-scale map of Iriarte appeared on the screen. He magnified a certain section, bringing geographical details into sharp relief. He ordered a printout and passed the resulting hard copy to Katerina.
‘I’ve marked where the flier went down.’
Katerina studied the map, aware that her hands were shaking. She was holding, here, the first evidence she had as to Bobby’s fate. She spread the map across the desk and pointed. ‘What are these features, here and here?’
‘Those are native settlements, temporary villages. The natives of this region are nomadic. The settlements are situated about a hundred kilometres south of where the wreckage was found. This is a monastery, a couple of hundred kays south of where the flier went down - some schism of the Church of the Ultimate Sacrifice.’
‘And this is a river, right?’ She indicated a broad band of blue winding its way between the green shading of the jungle, at it closest point about fifty kays from the crash site. She looked up at Magnusson. ‘What about transport?’
‘There’s a daily ferry from Baudelaire to Apollinaire. From Apollinaire, ferries into the interior run about once a week.’
‘What about fliers?’
Magnusson was smiling. ‘Even the famous Katerina De Klien would have difficulty finding a flier for hire since the evacuations began.’
Katerina folded the map and made to leave. ‘I appreciate your help, Director. You’ve made my job a lot easier.’
‘But I still advise you not to venture south,’ he began.
Katerina just stared at him. ‘And I’ll give your advice the consideration it deserves,’ she said.
Magnusson inclined his head. ‘Good luck, Ms De Klien.’
Katerina left the TWC headquarters. The protesters had disappeared, driven away by the merciless heat of the midday sun, and the streets of Baudelaire were deserted.
* * * *
Alien and off-world fortune-tellers had set up their tents inside the terminal building of the Baudelaire-Apollinaire sea ferry. The vast shed was packed with travellers. Families camped in the central area, huddled around the pathetic bundles of their possessions. Katerina bought a ticket for the Apollinaire ferry, due to depart in one hour, a tortilla and some strange-looking fruit from a vendor, and lugged her pack into the cavernous building. A warm breeze lapped in from the ocean beyond the open end of the shed, stirring the hot air and circulating the combined smells of sweat and cooking food. The sun had set one hour ago, leaving in its wake a flickering aurora of crimson and gold as brilliant as any cinematic effect.
She sat on her pack and ate, looking around at the crowd milling to and from the ferries constantly docking and embarking. The criss-crossing melee of scurrying individuals resembled one vast beast, a gestalt organism continually renewing itself. She recalled arriving in Dakar all those years ago and sitting on the corner of Hugo boulevard, watching the crowd swarming through the junction and thinking how insignificant and alone she was.
She had been taken in by Sophia, a mountainously fat women in her forties who read palms and told fortunes and claimed that her father had been a Fulani witch-doctor before the war. On their first meeting, Sophia had taken one look at Katerina’s soiled palm and made eyes as big as the moon. ‘Girl, are you gonna go places, and I mean go places!’
Now Katerina scanned the bizarre and gaudy tents set up around the walls of the terminal. There were at least a dozen fortune-tellers to choose from, native Tartareans and off-worlders alike. She’d heard bad stories about alien tellers, like some who could and would tell you the exact day you were due to die, others who could take over your body and use it for their own purposes in the dead of night.
She was intrigued by one particular tent, and the figure who sat outside it. The tent was conical and silver, with words in French scrolling down its sloping sides. It advertised the skill of Sabine, mind-reader and future-seer. The girl on the stool before the tent was young and beautiful, her head shaven and embroidered with a micro-mesh scalp implant. She looked North African, her skin as gold as the Saharan sand at dawn, her pose noble and yet resigned, as if she were burdened with the knowledge of some terrible and inexpressible tragedy.
Katerina activated her camera, shouldered her pack and approached the tent. The girl regarded her from beneath long eyelashes, and casually turned her wrist to gesture Katerina through the flap. The girl slipped in after her, indicating that Katerina should remove her shoes and sit on a cushion on the ground. The girl - Sabine, presumably - seated herself opposite with a negligent languor born of repetition.
Her eyes downcast, Sabine murmured her rates. ‘For one week ahead, one hundred units, for two, two hundred - like this, okay?’
‘Two weeks will be fine,’ Katerina said.
Sabine placed a velvet pillow between them, then nested upon the pillow a magnificent, many faceted crystal.
‘Put your hand there, listen to my questions and answer them truthfully.’
Katerina accommodated her palm to the crystal’s uneven surface. The girl placed her small hand on Katerina’s and bowed her head. As the seconds passed, Katerina watched the symmetrical pattern of silver wires on her scalp begin to glow.
Sabine asked, ‘Tell me why you came to Tartarus?’
Katerina said that she had come to learn the fate of her brother.
‘And have you learned of his fate?’
‘I fear he’s dead.’
Sabine looked up, her large oasis eyes enquiring. ‘But I feel you knew this before you left Earth?’
‘I had been told that he was dead, but I didn’t know the exact circumstances.’
Sabine fell silent. She bowed her head again, as if in concentration.
‘But you cannot bring yourself to grieve for your brother, for Bobby.’
Katerina stared, shocked. ‘How do you know his name?’
Sabine merely smiled and repeated her question. ‘You cannot grieve for your brother, no?’
Katerina gathered herself. ‘I ... I feel a sadness, a loss. But we had no contact for years.’
‘This is not the only reason you cannot grieve for Bobby.’
It was a statement of fact that shocked Katerina. ‘No . . . No, it isn’t.’
‘You feel anger, resentment.’
Her mouth suddenly dry, Katerina nodded. ‘Yes, I do.’
She recalled how Bobby had left the orphanage when he was sixteen, had left her to face alone the harsh and loveless routine of the institution that he had hated as much as she did. He had known the hell to which he had consigned Katerina, and yet that had not stopped him walking out.
And then one day at dawn she had slipped from the orphanage to bathe illicitly in a nearby river. She had spent the morning swimming naked beneath the sun, and by noon she had made her decision: she would not return to the orphanage. She left her uniform beside the river, changed into her casual clothes, and caught the three o’clock express to Dakar. She had rode all the way on the roof, and the wind that roared in her face was her first real taste of freedom.
Sabine lifted Katerina’s hand from the crystal, then placed the stone in her lap. She hung her head low, her eyes closed, both hands resting on the crystal.
At last she looked up. ‘I feel now that I know you. I can tell you what lies ahead.’
Katerina felt the tension build within her. Unlike her Western colleagues back on Earth, who sometimes mocked her belief as superstitious, she had faith that fortune-tellers’ predictions would to varying degrees come true. How it worked, how these people could read the future, she had no idea - all she knew was that in her experience the many tellers she had consulted, from Sophia onwards, had correctly divined her destiny.
Now Sabine said, ‘Your brother is alive. You will find him, and he will apologise and explain himself. That is all I can see.’
Katerina shook her head, unable to speak. She experienced an effect of shock: a rapid warmth rising from her chest. At last she managed, ‘But I was told he was dead. That there was no way could he have survived . . .’ She pressed fingers into her eyes, then stared through the gloom at the Arab girl. ‘How . . . where is he? How do I find him?’
‘I’m sorry. I know none of these things. I see you speaking to him, I see your tears.’
‘Tears of joy?’
Sabine avoided her eyes. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Tears of sorrow.’
From the pier outside the terminal building, the ugly double note of a klaxon rent the humid air. ‘My boat. I must go.’
‘Take care,’ Sabine said. ‘And good luck.’
It was the second time she had been wished good luck that day. Impulsively, she leaned forward and touched the fortune-teller’s cheek. Then she paid Sabine and hurried from the tent, and when she looked back the girl had emerged and resumed her seat, the knowledge of future events informing her pose with tragedy.
That night, as she slept in her berth aboard the ancient diesel-powered ferry that carried her south across the Sea of Baudelaire, Katerina dreamed of Bobby. He was standing in the jungle, blood flowing from a dozen lacerations, his arms outstretched in supplication.
And he was calling out her name.
* * * *
Katerina arrived in Apollinaire at dawn and booked into a quiet canal-side hotel. The ancient metropolis consisted solely of two-storey timber buildings on a grid-pattern of man-made waterways. The place had about it an air of premature abandonment, as over the years half the population had moved to Baudelaire, and then off-planet. The citizens who remained did not fill the city, and entire quarters had succumbed to gradual neglect. The jungle, hacked back when the city had been built hundreds of years ago, was reclaiming its territory street by street: creeping vines and huge tropical blooms gave buildings the surreal appearance of things at once familiar, yet strangely transformed.
Magnusson had been right about the impossibility of hiring a flier for the trip into the interior. Of the three vehicle hire agencies in the city, two had long since closed and the third hired out only ground-effect vehicles. The owner told her that with the exodus from Tartarus there was no longer a demand for the fliers from the rich and adventurous, and that the only way to travel into the heart of the continent was by steamer.
She made enquiries at the steamboat headquarters and learned that the next ferry left for the interior in three days. She spent the period wandering through the moribund city, talking to those citizens yet to be evacuated and creating, through a montage of interviews, a picture of life on the dying planet of Tartarus.
At night she drank in a bar she’d heard was frequented by the last of the traders who had once made regular forays into the heart of the continent. On the night before her departure, she bought drinks for half a dozen sun-scorched, jungle-toughened men and women, merchants and explorers, who sat around the table on the verandah of the Ace of Spades bar.
She spread her map across the table and told her story. She said that she was trying to find out what had happened to her brother who had crash-landed in the jungle.
A bald-headed prospector looked up from the map. ‘How long ago did you say this was?’
‘Three years.’
‘And he came down here, in Kruger territory? He’d be lucky to survive half a day.’
The others nodded and murmured their agreement.
‘I’ve good grounds to believe he survived the crash.’
A muscled old woman with skin like mahogany peered at her. ‘You have? What grounds?’
‘The word of a future seer,’ Katerina said.
The old woman laughed. A couple of her companions, more superstitious, made gestures appropriate to their religions.
‘Surely we’d have heard of a crash,’ the bald prospector said, ‘and for certain if he’d survived.’
His neighbour judiciously shook his head. ‘You think? In Kruger territory? When was the last time we heard anything out of Kruger territory?’
One or two of the others nodded, filling her with hope.
‘It’s jungle heartland,’ the old woman explained. ‘Think of all the poisonous snakes and plants you know, then double them and add a dozen nasty viruses for spice. There’s only one tribe able to survive in there - the Bourgs, and they’re nomadic. They pass through the Territory once a year to harvest the golden fruit, and then get out.’
A silence came down on the group as they contemplated their beers. Katerina noticed an exchange of glances, as if the motley crew were trying tacitly to determine whether or not to tell her more.
‘What is it?’
The bald prospector looked up. ‘Old Henrique,’ he said. ‘If you’re lucky you might find him at Lapierre’s Landing.’
‘Heard he’d caught a killer virus,’ someone said.
The prospector shook his head. ‘If he had, he’s shook it off. He’s back on his feet now and trading. Tough character, Henrique. If he’s not in the interior, he’ll be found at Sookie’s place in Lapierre’s Landing, three hundred kays upriver.’
The old woman nodded. ‘If anyone’ll be able to tell you about your brother, Old Henrique’s your man. Knows Kruger territory like his backyard, has the ear of the Bourg people. He’s partial to a flagon of sour feti, so make him a present and tell him Lizzie sent you.’
Katerina ordered another round. She raised her glass. ‘To Old Henrique,’ she said.
The following morning, her head aching from the beer, Katerina boarded the ramshackle steamboat, the Iriarte Queen, for the slow voyage into the interior.
She was allocated an insect-infested cabin on the top deck, with a narrow, uncomfortable bed and a spluttering shower. There were only two other passengers beside herself, a wizened old couple she saw boarding the steamer on the morning of departure. The oldsters were white tribes-people, descendants of the original European settlers. They went barefoot and wore baggy shorts and soiled T-shirts, more to appease the nudity taboo of the so-called civilised world than to make any fashion statement. Katerina’s only other travelling companions were the Captain and his mate, a young Oriental barely into his teens who doubled as ship’s cook.
She soon slipped into the shipboard routine. This close to the equator, you slept during the heat of the day and awoke at sunset to enjoy the relatively cooler hours of night. There were two meals a day; a breakfast of fruit and bitter coffee at sunset, and a spiced stew with rice in the early hours of morning. Katerina spent the evenings in the ship’s mildewed bar, making the most of the journey’s only luxury: a constant and cheap supply of bottled lager beer, chilled to perfection. She interviewed the captain and his lad - local colour for the film - but had no such luck with the tribes-people: they spoke a corrupted form of German she had no hope of understanding.
The river was a broad, brown swath winding between the monotonous, canyon-like walls of the jungle. For a few hours on the first night, Katerina stared out into the jungle from her seat in the bar, trying to discern some feature of interest in the passing landscape. By the fourth night, alone in the bar, she found the regularity of the jungle strangely threatening: other than the ship, there was no sign that humankind had imposed its mark upon the land. The jungle was inhospitable and inimical, and every hour she was travelling further into its alien heart. The foliage that often overhung the river seemed to be reaching out, eager to absorb both the water and the ship. She tried to busy herself with filming and commenting on the journey so far, but there was only so much to film, and she knew she would not use much of her narration: in her films to date she preferred to allow the moving image and the words of the locals to shape the course of the narrative. She was speaking now for the sake of something to do, the sound of her voice intrusive against the incessant throbbing of the ship’s engine and the occasional bird-call from the jungle.
By the sixth night, a combination of the monotony of the journey, the succession of beers, and a self-questioning doubt as to the sanity of her mission, pitched Katerina into a philosophical mood. She realised that she had seen no other ships heading into the interior. The few boats she had observed had been moving in the other direction, half a dozen vessels overloaded with citizens eager to flee the hostile southern continent and start a life afresh on some safe, new world. She was going against the tide, both physically and in a more abstract sense. As she slouched on the battered chesterfield that she had made her own, and stared out into the night sky, a blood-red dome shot through with high gold and silver cirrus, she realised she had only the dubious word of some cheap fortune-teller that her brother was still alive. She had been told what she wanted to believe by someone who perhaps had the ability to read her mind, divine her most secret wishes. The chance that Bobby had survived the crash-landing was slim indeed - even more so the idea that he might somehow have survived for three years in the hostile jungle. Drunk, she told herself that she should forget the film, turn back before she further endangered herself. . . But even as she was thinking this, she knew she could not give up now. Part of the drive to learn the truth, she knew, was not so much the love she had had for Bobby, but a strange and unsettling hate. She resented him for leaving her, for not coming back - so in lieu of his coming back for her, she would shame Bobby by seeking him out, irrespective of the danger to herself.
At dawn, the magnesium glare of the rising sun pushed back the blood-red night. Katerina stood unsteadily, pitched her empty beer bottle at the far shore with more venom than accuracy, and staggered to her cabin. She showered in the lukewarm water pumped no doubt straight from the river, which neither cleaned her nor cooled her down, fell into bed and within seconds was sweating again. She slept fitfully as the temperature increased and the sun sent spears of light through the gaps in the broken blinds. Lucid dreams merged with half-forgotten memories of Bobby, so that when she was jerked awake by a sound from the jungle he seemed to be with her in the cabin, the spectral presence of this half-man, half-boy creature by turns frightening and reassuring.
She recalled the fortune-teller’s words.
‘Tears of joy?’ Katerina had asked.
‘No,’ Sabine had replied. ‘Tears of sorrow.’
As the sun went down and the temperature dropped appreciably, Katerina lay with her head buried in the sweat-soaked pillow and thought back to the last time she had spoken to Bobby.
* * * *
It was two weeks before his sixteenth birthday, the time he would leave the orphanage and make his way in the world. He was playing a hectic game of football with a dozen other boys on the balding playing fields within the grounds of the home. He drifted out of the game - it seemed with reluctance - and made his way across to where Katerina was sitting by herself in the shade of a flame tree, watching a film on her portable screen. He paused before her, with the same hesitant uncertainty he had shown on leaving the game, and she was alerted. This was quite unlike him.
He squatted beside her, peering with feigned curiosity at the image on the small screen. He knew nothing about films, never watched them, and now this show of interest irritated Katerina.
She killed the set. ‘What’s wrong?’
He avoided her eyes. ‘Two weeks,’ he said, almost inaudibly.
She smiled. ‘You getting cold feet, Bobby! Thought you didn’t like this place? Thought you couldn’t wait to get out? That’s what you told me!’
He shrugged awkwardly.
‘Don’t worry. You can come back to visit me. And you can sit at the headmaster’s table with the other old boys on feast days.’ Her tone was mocking, but she faltered when he failed to respond.
‘Bobby, what is it?’
He was silent. She thought she knew what was troubling him. Most kids on leaving the orphanage found work and accommodation in the town - there were schemes run by local businesses to provide employment and shelter for graduates. Although Bobby’s grades had been good, he’d said nothing to her for the past month about finding a job.
‘Bobby, you’ve nowhere to go to, have you?’ Sympathy was mixed with anger at his lassitude. He was a bright kid when he applied himself.
Wordlessly, he pulled a folded, glossy brochure from the back pocket of his shorts and thrust it at her. It was an advertisement for the Sigma Corporation, recruiting apprentice engineers.
‘I sat the exam and passed,’ he whispered. ‘I leave in three weeks.’
‘The Sigma Corporation? But that’s brilliant!’ And she flung her arms around him in a hug that foundered on his mobility. She pulled away. ‘Bobby,’ she said, exasperated, what’s wrong?’
‘The Sigma Corporation’s based on Draconis IV,’ he said. ‘In three weeks I’ll be leaving Earth.’
Something deep within her froze. They had been together for as long as she could remember. He had told her that when he left the orphanage he would get a place in town and visit her every other day, and on weekends she could come and stay with him. The idea of being without Bobby was unthinkable.
‘How long?’ she managed at last. ‘How long will you be away?’
He stared at the ground. ‘The apprenticeship is for three years,’ he whispered. ‘After that there’s secondment to one of Sigma’s sister companies.’
She was silently shaking her head. ‘But how long will you be away?’ she almost wailed.
‘Kat, in three years I’ll come back for you, okay? On your sixteenth birthday, I’ll be back. I’ll have earned enough by then to buy your passage to Draconis. I’ll find you a place to live, a job.’
‘Three years . . . ?’ She had never relished the thought of her three remaining years in the orphanage, even with Bobby nearby to make it bearable. She told herself that she would be unable to go on without him.
Then she looked at her brother. He had known for weeks about his departure, and he had been unable to bring himself to tell her, to hurt her. Yet she could sense that a part of him was proud of his achievement, and excited to be leaving the orphanage on an adventure to the stars - and she knew that she could not deny him the chance of a lifetime.
She reached out, flung her arms around his shoulders and wiped away her tears with the cuff of her blouse.
Two weeks later they said goodbye outside the gates of the home, while the taxi waited to take Bobby to the airport. ‘I’ll be back in three years,’ he promised again. ‘It might seem like a long time, but you’ll see how fast it goes.’
The following three years were, contrary to Bobby’s forecast, the longest of her life. Those aspects of the home which had been tolerable with Bobby around now became impossible to bear: the lack of affection, the feeling that she was special to no one, the fact that there was no one to whom she could unburden herself. She became withdrawn, even from people she’d considered friends before. She concentrated on her work, and counted the days to her sixteenth birthday and Bobby’s return. His monthly letters spoke of an exciting new life, of friends, of experiences she could only ever imagine.
Two weeks before her birthday, it was announced that due to economic recession, and the resulting shortage of jobs in the area, fifth form pupils would be required to stay on at the home for another year. While those around her bewailed their prolonged captivity, Katerina basked in the secret knowledge of her imminent rescue.
Her sixteenth birthday came and went, though, with no sign of Bobby. In the days that followed the longed-for hour of liberation, she told herself that he had been delayed, that today he would come for her, and like this weeks and months passed by. She had not received a letter from him since before her birthday, and every month, as often as she could afford, she wrote to him, imploring him to get in touch. Six months later, with no sign of Bobby and still no word from him, she admitted to herself that life on Draconis was too good for Bobby to waste time and money rescuing his kid sister ... So she let her studies slip, and dodged lessons when she could. Then one morning she skipped literature studies, went swimming in the river, and then caught the express to the coast.
* * * *
The sun had set by the time she rose, showered, and made her way to the bar for the breakfast of fruit and coffee, which she would eat in silence with the old man and woman. It was the seventh day of the journey, and they were due to dock at Lapierre’s Landing at midnight. After breakfast, Katerina resumed her station on the chesterfield by the open window, drank beer and stared out at the dark jungle beneath a fiery night sky.
She was on her third beer when her attention was attracted by movement on the bank of the river. She made out the fleeting glimpse of a human figure dashing through the foliage. As she leaned forward and stared, she caught fight of more and more figures, perhaps a dozen, as they ran swiftly through the jungle, paralleling the course of the boat. They emerged upon a projecting, moss-covered rock at a bend in the river, stood in absolute silence and watched as the boat passed by. Katerina was up and filming, aware of the quality of the shot. The tribesmen were tall and sun-bronzed, with fair hair and blue eyes. Some wore loincloths, others went naked. All carried spears or bows and arrows. They stood in a still and silent tableau, watching the slow passage of the boat with no sign of either hospitality or Hostility. The river turned again and the tribesmen passed from sight. Katerina resumed her beer and contemplated existence in such hostile terrain.
One hour later, as they approached the rotting timber settlement that was Lapierre’s Landing, she activated her camera and composed an establishing shot.
She had expected a small town, at least a settlement of a hundred or so cabins. Her heart sank when the boat pulled into the L-shaped jetty and she made out a dozen ramshackle timber huts in a clearing surrounded on three sides by jungle. There was no sign of activity on the shore, though trails of smoke did rise from a couple of the cabins. Katerina collected her pack and carefully negotiated the precarious gangplank.
She spotted a crude sign nailed to a timber construct on the river’s edge. The sign read, ‘Sook’ - with the remaining three letters, ‘ie’s’, hanging on a loose board at right angles. Katerina made her way along the muddy bank, the humidity sapping her strength, and ducked into the doorway beneath the dangling sign.
Tables and benches, constructed from the ubiquitous timber planking, filled the gloomy interior - the crowded seating arrangements suggesting that Sookie’s had seen busier days. An old woman, her European face lined with wrinkles, sat beside a huge, throbbing refrigerator. She stared with an expression of frank amazement as Katerina sat herself down on a bench and mopped the sweat from her brow.
There was no sign of Old Henrique.
Recovering her composure, the woman hauled open the fridge door and pulled out an ice-cold beer. She removed the cap with an opener tied to the hinge of the fridge door with a length of twine, and passed the bottle to Katerina.
Liquid had never tasted so good. Katerina held up the empty and nodded for a second bottle.
Two beers later, she lined up the empty with the others and smiled at the old woman. ‘Look. I’d like to go on drinking all day, but I came here for a reason. I’m looking for Henrique. Old Henrique.’
The woman stared and shook her head. She muttered something in a language Katerina did not understand, perhaps corrupted German.
‘Old Henrique,’ she spoke loud and clear. ‘Where can I find him?’
Enlightenment showed on the woman’s face. ‘Ah, Henrique?’ she said, then babbled on and pointed towards the jungle.
At last she climbed to her feet, took Katerina by the hand and led her outside. She walked her to the centre of the clearing and pointed up the slight incline. Katerina made out a raised timber walkway disappearing into the jungle. ‘Down there? I’ll find Henrique down there?’
The woman nodded, almost pushing Katerina on her way. ‘Ja, Henrique.’
Shouldering her pack, Katerina walked from the river, passing timber huts on stilts, mangy dogs sleeping in their shade and filthy, naked children watching her silently from doorways.
The walkway was a death-trap of treacherous mould and missing planks. She clutched a loose handrail and inched her way forward, peering into the gloom ahead for any sign of habitation. A hundred metres further on, the walkway terminated at the front porch of a long, low hut. The door was open and an orange light glowed within.
Katerina knocked on the timber frame, only then remembering the old woman’s advice to present Henrique with a bottle of feti to keep him sweet. Damn - she’d promise him an entire crate if he could help her.
‘Enter,’ a gravelly baritone sounded from inside.
She stepped into a one-room building entirely in shadow but for a globe of light which illuminated a big man seated in an armchair. She had expected some diseased and weather-worn trader in his hundreds. Old Henrique, despite his title, was perhaps fifty, massive-chested, bald-headed and emanating, even when seated, an awesome sense of power.
‘Don’t tell me,’ he said in French. ‘Lizzie sent you, right? And she suggested you bring feti as a gift. But Sookie’s doesn’t sell the stuff, and you’re wondering if you’ll still get your interview.’
‘Almost right,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want an interview.’
‘You don’t? You’re not a journalist?’ He smiled to himself at some personal joke. ‘You’re not here to quiz me about what it’s like to be afflicted?’
‘Well, I am a journalist, but I haven’t come to ask about your health.’
‘That makes a change, girl. I get medical hacks come from all over the Thousand Worlds to pry and poke and ask a hundred stupid questions. Then of course they all want the photograph.’ He stared at her, his eyes large beneath his bald head. His stare seemed to challenge her.
She accepted the challenge. ‘The photograph?’
Smiling, he lifted his hands from the arms of the chair and slowly unfastened his shirt. Despite herself, Katerina stared. His chest and belly was covered with a thousand blood-red writhing tentacles, each perhaps as long as a finger, embedded in his flesh.
He smiled in satisfaction at her expression, and then slowly fastened his shirt.
‘I was way down south one night and I hadn’t fumigated the tent, and in the morning something had laid its egg in my chest. By the time I got to Apollinaire it was too late. Yekini’s, after the prospector who was first afflicted. It’s a symbiotic creature which usually lives on Leverfre’s mandrills, but humans’ll do at a push. It isn’t life threatening, and the pain can be kept in check with pills. On the plus side, it releases a mild hallucinogen into my bloodstream, which I must admit I find rather pleasant.’ His expression hardened. ‘Now, you’ve got what you want, so why don’t you go back to where you came from?’
Katerina matched his stare. ‘I’m a journalist,’ she said, ‘but I’m not a ghoul. I didn’t come here because of the Yekini’s.’
He gestured at her to explain herself, his expression half-amused.
‘Lizzie told me you know Kruger territory and the Bourg people.’
He bunched his lips in contemplation. ‘And if I do?’
‘I need your help. I can pay, and pay well.’
Henrique was silent for long seconds. At last he asked. ‘Pay for what?’
‘Information, first - then maybe advice and help.’ He rested his head on the back of his chair, the tanned skin of his face highlighted by the lamp beside his chair, ‘What do you want to know?’
Hesitantly, picking her words with care, Katerina told him about her brother and the crash-landing. Then she asked Henrique if he had heard or seen anything that might corroborate the fortune-teller’s claim that Bobby is still alive.
He heard her out without a word, staring up at the thatched ceiling of the hut, his face impassive. The silence continued long after Katerina had finished speaking.
At last he said, ‘Chances are if he came down in Kruger territory, was injured and wandered off into the jungle, then he’s dead.’
‘Not according to the fortune-teller.’
Henrique closed one eye and regarded her askance. ‘And you believe in fortune-tellers?’
Sophia told me I’d go places, Katerina thought, and I did: perhaps it was only because someone believed in me, after the disappointment of Bobby’s broken promise, that I began to believe in myself and strove to succeed.
She shrugged. ‘Yes. I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I want to believe so much that I do.’
Henrique listened without mocking her, then nodded. ‘When did your brother go down? What time of year?’
Katerina calculated. ‘Three years ago, St Bede’s month.’
‘High summer. Golden fruit’s harvested in summer, so the Bourg people might’ve been in the area.’
‘But if they’d found him, then surely you’d have heard about it?’
‘Not necessarily. I trade with the Bourg. I barter knives for golden fruit, but we talk about nothing other than the goods. They’re an insular, suspicious people.’
‘So Bobby might have been found by the Bourg?’
Henrique scowled and shook his head. ‘If he survived, then why didn’t he return to civilisation? On their yearly migration, the Bourg come within twenty kilometres of Lapierre.’
‘So maybe he didn’t survive. Maybe he died. I need to find out, whatever happened.’ She paused, then asked, ‘Can you take me to the Bourg people? Maybe they can tell me what happened to Bobby?’
He seemed to consider her request for a long time. ‘What month is it?’ he asked.
‘St Mary’s.’
He smiled. ‘I lose track. Sometimes, Yekini’s puts me out for days at a time. Get me that.’ He indicated a worn map on a nearby table.
Katerina passed him the map and he pored over it, tracing a route through the jungle with a blunt forefinger and talking to himself.
‘The Bourg’ll be here,’ he said, pointing, ‘two hundred kays south of Lapierre.’ He looked up at Katerina. ‘There’s no reason why I can’t take you. But my services don’t come cheap. There’s the hire of my flier, my fee as a guide and translator . . .’
‘How much?’
‘Five thousand shellings, Tartarean.’
She would have paid ten times that amount for information about her brother. ‘That sounds reasonable,’ she said.
She reached out and shook Old Henrique by the hand.
* * * *
For the first two hours of the journey south they flew above the jungle, a dark expanse that rolled away for hundreds of kilometres in every direction. Above them, the heavens were afire, the night sky streaked with great arching blood-red and amber cloud formations. Later, at the first sign of dawn on the far horizon, Henrique lowered his battered, open-top flier through the jungle canopy and into a jade-tinted twilight.
She took her mind from what lay ahead by filming their passage through the jungle. At one point Henrique dropped her on a fan-shaped cantilever of fungus growing at right angles from a tree trunk, then turned back and repeated his approach, so that she could get a shot of the vehicle in flight.
Resuming their journey, she provoked Henrique into conversation and filmed him.
‘The traders at the Ace of Spades called you “Old” Henrique,’ she said. ‘I was expecting some grizzled ancient.’
Sitting back in the driving seat, Henrique glanced at her. ‘I had a son, also named Henrique. Young Henrique.’
For the sake of the film, she asked, ‘What happened to him?’
Henrique stared straight ahead, his big hands wringing the apex of the steering wheel. ‘He died. We worked together, trading. He was attacked by a chowl. He was twenty.’
She murmured her condolences.
He flashed her a glance that said he could do without her spurious sympathy.
The white light of day fell through gaps in the foliage high overhead like great probing searchlights, illuminating motes of dust, air-borne seeds and the occasional giant butterfly and insect.
‘What will you do when you leave Tartarus?’ she asked after an interval. ‘Have you decided where you’ll go?’
‘I’m not leaving,’ he said at last. ‘I’ve decided to stay on Tartarus.’
She wanted to protest that he was still young, that there were other planets similar to Tartarus among the Thousand Worlds. ‘That’s a brave decision.’ She shrugged. ‘Can’t say I understand it.’
He turned to her. ‘I’ve lived all my life in the jungle. I can read the place, the flora and the fauna. I can track every animal bigger than a rat through the undergrowth for kilometres, if needs be. I can tell by scent alone every creature within a fifty-metre radius . . . Tartarus is unique. If I resettled on some other jungle world I’d have to relearn everything. I can’t begin all over again.’
‘But surely any life is preferable to death? As for work, you could do something completely different.’
‘This is all I know. All I want to know. I’ve had plenty of time to come to terms with the end. I want to die with the planet.’
‘Like some of the tribes . . . Are the Bourg people staying here?’
‘They worship the supernova. They couldn’t leave the land where their ancestors are buried. According to their beliefs, they’ll be reunited with their dead when the sun blows.’
They flew on in silence for the remainder of the journey. As the day advanced, the heat and humidity within the jungle increased correspondingly. Even the headwind was hot, like the backblast from a jet engine. A cocktail of uv-block, insect repellent, and sweat filmed Katerina’s skin in an uncomfortable, sebaceous membrane.
She dozed fitfully, bullied awake each time by the discomfort of her posture. Each period of sleep she dreamed of Bobby, as he was as a boy, and how he might be now - a succession of hopeful images that contrasted cruelly with her waking pessimism.
When she resurfaced from her last period of sleep, the roar of the engine was noticeable by its absence, a loud silence that seemed to fill her head. She stretched and yawned, then stared about her. Henrique had brought the flier to rest amid a tangle of undergrowth. He stood nearby, holding a large leaf between thumb and forefinger. He was staring through a thicket of foliage, the dome of his bald head cocked to one side.
‘They’re not far away,’ he called to her. ‘A group of Hunters passed this way two days ago - a band of about six. That means the tribe will be camped in a nearby clearing.’
He climbed back into the flier and fired the engine, rutting a path through the undergrowth at an altitude of a couple of metres, occasionally stopping to inspect the foliage.
He nodded with evident satisfaction. ‘The same group came by here six to eight hours ago. We’re almost there.’
Katerina filmed for the next hour, not wanting to miss their arrival at the tribal clearing. When they came upon the encampment, they did so suddenly and without warning. One second they were moving through the whipping foliage, and the next they had burst through into an open space rilled with the harsh white glare of the risen sun.
Perhaps two dozen pyramidal tents woven from large, waxy leaves stood around the clearing. The tribes-people had been slumbering in their shade - as evidenced by a few who still did so - but the majority had been alerted by the sound of the engine and were on their feet and cautiously approaching the flier.
They were tall, blond and blue-eyed. Some wore loincloths, others went naked; all wore body-paint, mud-coloured chevrons on chest and stomach. Katerina could not help but consider how incongruous it was to behold an essentially European people in such a state of nature.
They surrounded the flier, fifty men, women and children, some clutching spears and bows, and stared with unreadable expressions. Katerina felt that she was the focus of their attention. She wondered if that was because they had never seen black skin like hers before - or because they had.
Henrique spoke in a halting, guttural tongue to a tall, patriarchal tribesman who had stepped forward from the crowd. The tribal elder responded, gesturing back towards a large communal tent.
Henrique turned to her. ‘I said I’ve brought a guest who wishes to pay compliments. We’re invited to join the oldster and his council in the meeting place.’
They crossed the clearing, followed by the tribe, and ducked into the designated construct. Katerina sat cross-legged next to Henrique, while four other men and women, beside the old man, entered the leaf-tent and sat across from them.
The oldster spoke. Henrique replied, and then translated. ‘He welcomes you on behalf of his people, and I replied on your behalf that you are honoured to be here.’
‘Can you ask him if he knows anything about my brother?’
‘Eventually, but not yet. There’s a certain protocol to follow before we get down to business. They’ll ask you questions and judge you by your replies. Don’t worry,’ Henrique smiled, ‘I’ll say the right things.’
There was a question from each of the tribal council. A woman asked her age, and Katerina told Henrique twenty-three. A man asked the next question. Henrique said, ‘He wishes to know if you are married.’
‘I’m not.’
‘As of now, you are. They’re suspicious of mature women who remain unmarried.’ He relayed this, and listened to the next question, smiling to himself. ‘And how many children do you have?’
‘Children? I . . .’
‘Four seems like a nice round number. That’ll earn you respect.’
Katerina bit back her protest as Henrique spoke the tribal language.
‘Do you believe? They know of only one deity, and expect everyone to believe in it. So just nod and say yes.’
She did as she was told and Henrique relayed the lie.
An old woman asked another question. Henrique stared at her in silence for a time.
‘Henrique?’ Katerina asked, touching his sleeve. ‘What did she say?’
He shook his head. ‘The woman asked if you will join your cousin in the sky.’ He spoke again to the council as Katerina tried to control her thoughts.
The glottal dialogue went back and forth, with much gesturing from all parties. Henrique chopped the ground from time to time, the gesture taken up and repeated by the elder.
At last a silence fell. Henrique shook his head and turned to Katerina. ‘Three years ago, a man with skin like yours fell from the sky in a flier. His companion was dead, and he was badly injured. They did what they could for him, healed his wounds and set his broken bones. He remained with the Bourg people as they moved through the jungle on their migration. He learned their language and, according to the council, accepted their belief.’ Here, Henrique broke off his resume and spoke again to the old woman, shaking his head in seeming frustration.
Katerina sat and stared, words beyond her. That Bobby had indeed survived the crash and joined the Bourg people filled her with hope - but where was Bobby now? If he had survived his injuries, then what had become of him? What did the old woman mean when she asked if Katerina would join her cousin in the sky?
Henrique listened to what the old woman had to say. ‘He stayed with them for six months,’ he told Katerina, ‘and then he joined his brothers in the sky.’
‘What does she mean?’ She felt a mounting dread. ‘Did he die? Is Bobby dead?’
‘I’ve asked them that. A literal translation of the reply is, “All who join the brothers are considered dead”. I’m trying to work out what that means. Have patience.’
He spoke to the council again. They replied, and Henrique nodded. Enlightenment showed on his face.
‘Good God, of course . . .’
‘What? He’s dead, isn’t he?’
‘No . . . No, he isn’t. I asked them where they were when he left them. They said somewhere south of here, west of Kruger territory, in the lee of the central mountains. That can mean only one thing. It’d explain “his brothers in the sky” . . .’
Katerina gripped his arm. ‘What? For God’s sake tell me!’
‘Your brother’s still alive. He survived the crash and was nursed back to health by the Bourg people. He even took their faith . . . and then he left them for his brothers in the sky.’ Henrique stared at her. ‘Bobby joined the monks of the Order of the Nova, Katerina, at the monastery of St Chrysostum.’
* * * *
They flew south in silence for a long time, Katerina trying to order her thoughts. There were so many questions she wanted to ask Henrique that she did not know where to begin. Hard upon the joy she had experienced at learning that Bobby was alive, she felt apprehension at the idea that he had joined a religious sect. What had the Bourg council said? All who join the brothers are considered dead.
‘The monastery’s a few hours away.’ Henrique said at last. ‘Part of a mountain range that spans the continent.’
‘Why this remote?’
He glanced across at her. ‘They’re an hermitic order. They’ve turned their backs on the world. They need privacy to practise their beliefs.’
‘The oldster said that all who join them are considered dead.’ Katerina watched his face for reaction. ‘What did he mean?’
She felt sure that Henrique knew more than he was willing to tell her. He shook his head. ‘I wish I knew.’
She persisted. ‘Do you know what they believe?’
‘They’re a sect of the Church of the Ultimate Sacrifice. They believe that through mortification they’ll stop the supernova.’
She felt the weight of a subtle depression settle over her. ‘I suppose I should be thankful he survived the crash.’
Henrique stared straight ahead and said nothing.
Two hours later he eased the flier up through the jungle canopy. Ahead, rearing majestically from the jungle like a dozen overlapping scimitar blades, were the silver peaks of the central mountains.
It was all Katerina could do to concentrate and film the establishing shot as the flier climbed towards the nearest peak. As they approached, a man-made edifice resolved itself in the vertical rock face. She made out a hundred slit windows, their multiplicity giving some indication of the vast extent of the monastery in the mountainside. Beneath the monastery was a great outcropping of rock bearing an incongruous garden. Evidently, their approach had been observed.
A welcoming committee of a dozen monks in long black habits stood together on the wide, flat lawn.
Henrique lowered the flier and cut the engine.
The monks of the Order of the Nova comprised a cross-section of the racial types on Tartarus: Latinos, Asiatics, even a couple of tall, blond Scandinavians. They regarded Katerina and Henrique with evident interest. She wondered how many casual visitors passed this way each year.
Henrique spoke to them in French.
The Nordic monk raised a hand. ‘You are welcome, of course. We never turn away weary travellers.’
‘We are more than . . . travellers,’ Henrique said. ‘We’re here to contact a relative, Katerina’s brother.’
At this, the monk turned his cowled head to Katerina. ‘That would be Brother Robert?’
‘He’s alive?’ she said.
‘He is alive,’ said the monk. ‘I trust you are not here in an attempt to take him from us? Brother Robert has taken his vows. He is one of us, now, and committed to the cause.’
Katerina shook his head. ‘I only want to meet him, to talk.’
‘In that case I see no reason to delay the reunion.’
At his words, Katerina almost wept.
They crossed the lawn behind the dozen silent monks and approached a tall arched doorway in the face of the cliff. After the searing heat of midday, the interior of the monastery was blessedly cool. The other monks ushered Henrique into a side room, leaving Katerina with the tall Scandinavian.
Still filming, Katerina followed him down long, chiselled corridors lighted by guttering candles. They climbed numerous narrow staircases, each step worn to a curve with the passage of centuries. At last they came to a wide corridor at the end of which was a timber door. Her guide knocked lightly, opened the door and gestured Katerina inside.
The room overlooked the jungle. A dozen slit windows admitted piercing shafts of light. Unlike the bare corridors, the room appeared comfortable, furnished with a carpet, chairs and a writing desk.
The monk told her to remain by the door, then crossed the room. He paused before a brown Hessian curtain that hung in an archway, and addressed quiet words to someone beyond. Katerina heard a sharp exclamation, then hurried words.
The monk turned and gestured to Katerina. He positioned a stool before the curtain and invited her to sit. ‘Brother Robert,’ he said.
Katerina sat down. Her voice tight with emotion, she said, ‘Can I see him?’
‘That is for him to decide. You may speak to him.’
The monk retreated to the slit windows at far side of the room and stood with his back to Katerina, contemplating the jungle below.
‘Bobby?’ she whispered.
‘Kat . . . Kat, is it you? Is it really you?’ She recognised his voice, fraught with disbelief.
‘It’s me,’ she said. She paused, considering her words. ‘You didn’t come for me, Bobby ... so I came for you.’
She heard a stifled cry.
‘Bobby?’
‘No!’
‘Bobby . . . please, what is it?’
She heard a deep, drawn breath as he gathered himself. ‘No...you’re dead. They told me you were dead!’
‘Bobby . . .’ she said. ‘Who told you?’
‘The teachers at the home . . . they told me you’d drowned in the river, your body swept downstream.’
Katerina held her head in her hands. ‘I went swimming, Bobby. I had to get away from the orphanage. I took the train to Dakar, started a new life.’
Katerina heard a cry from behind the curtain. ‘I thought you’d taken your own life when I failed to come for you. I was delayed, Kat. Sigma sent me out to the Rim. Oh, my God . . . For so long I thought you were dead. You can’t imagine the guilt I felt.’
Katerina recalled the message disc, the others that Bobby had spoken of recording. ‘But the disc you left,’ she began. ‘If you thought I was dead, then—?’
‘It was because I thought you were dead that I made them,’ Bobby replied. ‘I made dozens, hundreds, explaining myself to you, asking for your forgiveness.’
Katerina rubbed tears from her cheeks. ‘For so long I hated you, Bobby. I hated you for not coming for me. For years I couldn’t bring myself to forgive.’
She reached out to take the curtain. She hesitated. ‘Bobby, can I . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I want to see you.’
‘Kat . . . Please, don’t. I have undergone penance.’
‘What have they done to you?’ she whispered. ‘What penance?’
‘Penance physicale,’ Bobby said, ‘that most holy of sacrifices.’
She snatched the curtain aside. She stood and stared at the revealed sight, disbelief quickly followed by understanding, and then revulsion. She slumped onto the stool and looked upon the remains of her brother.
He was seated in an invalid carriage, to serve as the legs he’d had removed. He was without arms to hold her, eyes to look upon her. His face was a parody, with evacuated eye sockets, and two hideous holes where his nose should have been. He was naked and Katerina saw - the final depredation - that he had been emasculated, too.
She wanted to cry out in denial at the thing her brother had become. She cursed the past, the terrible sequence of events that had brought him to this end.
‘Bobby . . .’ she managed at last. ‘Why . . . ? Why this?’
‘Don’t you understand, Kat?’ He turned his head towards her, his stitched-up eyelids staring blindly. ‘For a long time I had been searching for something,’ he said. ‘And then I crashed in the jungle and was saved by the Bourg. They accepted me as one of them, and initiated me into their religion. From time to time one of their number would join the Brothers. I had so much guilt to atone for, and above all the desire to sacrifice myself for the salvation of others. My suffering will halt the process of the supernova.’
Katerina stared at him. ’No . . . !’
‘Tomorrow,’ Bobby went on, ‘I make the ultimate sacrifice. With the other brothers of my year, I will take to the cross beneath the sun and allow its heat to flense my soul.’
Katerina moaned in pain. She reached for her brother, wanting to take him in her hands, but recoiled from the limbless torso he had become.
‘You can’t do this, Bobby!’ she cried. ‘What’s happened to you? Don’t you see, it won’t work! Your sacrifice . . . Think about it. How can your death stop the process—?’
His lips formed a rictus of pain. ‘Kat . . . Kat, I believe. Don’t you understand that? Faith is all. If you believe in something with sufficient conviction, then you will succeed. The age of miracles is upon us, Kat! Believe and you will be saved!’
‘What happened to you, Bobby?’ she whispered. ‘What happened?’
What had happened to him on the day he had returned to Earth, to discover that she had drowned? If only she had returned to the orphanage . . .
Into her head came an image of the boy Bobby had been, the awkward, studious child she had loved. She looked upon the person he had become, the mutilated wreckage of his body, and it came to her that she no longer knew the man who called himself Brother Robert.
‘Kat, don’t you see? Don’t you understand? I need to do what I am doing in order to make myself whole again in spirit.’
He had gone too far, she realised, to be saved as she wished to save him. She had to let him go, now; somehow manage her pain and try to come to some acceptance her brother’s choice.
She reached out and touched Bobby’s shoulder. In response - perhaps the only gesture of reciprocation he could make in the circumstance - he moved his head and touched her fingers with his cheek.
They remained like this for long minutes, Katerina lost in contemplation of past events and their consequences.
She recalled her meeting with the fortune-teller, Sabine.
Tears of joy? No, tears of sorrow . . .
Silently, so that Bobby might not hear her, Katerina hung her head and wept.
* * * *
She slept badly that night, and in the early hours left her cell and crossed the corridor to Henrique’s. She lay beside him on the bed, and presently he put an arm around her shoulders and drew her to him.
In the morning they were escorted from the monastery to a high, lonely plateau of rock. Bobby and the other sacrificial monks sat in carriages beneath the burning sun. A dozen crucifixes lay upon the rock.
Steeling herself, Katerina released Henrique’s hand and crossed the plateau to where Bobby sat in his carriage. She knelt beside him, touched his shoulder. ‘Bobby, it’s me.’
His lips twitched in the semblance of a smile. ‘Kat . . . Kat, I’m glad you’ve come. I wish . . . Oh, I wish there was some way I could make you see how . . . how right this is for me.’
She leaned forward and kissed his forehead. ‘There’s no need, Bobby,’ she whispered. ‘I think I understand.’
Someone touched her arm. It was the Nordic monk. ‘The ceremony is about to commence.’
A choir of monks began a dolorous plainsong.
‘Goodbye, Bobby,’ she said.
She stood quickly and hurried over to Henrique. As they watched, the dozen monks were taken from their carriages, carried with loving care across the plateau, and lashed to the timbers. Then the crucifixes were hauled upright and slotted into holes in the rock.
Even as Katerina watched, some part of her - that hardened half that had made her what she was, that had fought to succeed against all odds, considering no one but herself and her own interests - realised what a fitting finale to her documentary this crucifixion would make. She could envisage the power of the shot: Bobby’s limbless torso lashed to the cross in the full heat of the midday sun.
But she could not bring herself to activate the camera.
After perhaps an hour, Henrique touched her hand and suggested that she had seen enough. She nodded, dumbly, and he walked her from the plateau to the garden and the flier.
They rose and banked from the monastery, heading out across the jungle. Katerina stared down at the rapidly diminishing plateau, at the dozen crucifixes and their burdens.
Then she looked ahead and considered the long, long journey home.
* * * *
|
T |
hat night the sun sank in a blaze of crimson and burnt-orange strata, and Jenner slept badly. He dreamed that his wife had returned to the Evacuation Station, emaciated and close to death after four years in the jungle. He experienced shock at her condition, elation at her return - soon dashed, upon waking, by the realisation that he was still without her.
In the quiet of the night he could hear the occasional call of a bird beyond the perimeter fence, foretokening dawn. As he watched the white light of day brighten, it came to him why he had dreamed, for the first time in months, of Laura.
He thought of his deputy, McKenzie, and wondered at the chances of establishing contact today.
* * * *
He carried a fruit juice from the kitchen and paused on the verandah. The Station overlooked a packed-earth compound, on the periphery of which were the hundred small timber huts, temporary accommodation for the tribal peoples before their transit off-planet. The provisional nature of the Station symbolised the eventual destruction of the planet, the day in ten years when the supernova would obliterate all life on Tartarus. The irony was that the very existence of the camp, and his post of Director of Evacuation (Southern Sector), was a nagging reminder that the people he was here to help, the tribes who dwelled in the hostile interior of the continent, were often resentful of his interference. More than one tribe had made it known that they wished to remain and perish with their planet.
He finished his drink and moved to the operations room. He would spend the next hour in radio contact with the teams working at sites across the continent, and then . . . He peered through the window, looking for the young girl he considered his adopted daughter. Later, he would seek out Cahla, perhaps play a game of out, or merely sit with her in companionable silence.
He contacted the teams one by one and found that, in general, things were going well. They had re-contacted nine of the ten tribes inhabiting the two thousand square kilometres of the continent, and perhaps half of them were proving amenable to reason: they had agreed to consider gathering at certain pick-up points when the evacuations began a year from now.
Jenner wished that the Ey’an people were so tractable. There had only ever been one meeting between them and an evacuation team, and though they said that they fully understood the implications of remaining on Tartarus, their religious belief forbade them to leave. Three days ago Jenner had sent in his best team to re-contact the hunter-gatherers.
The day before yesterday he had lost radio contact with Bill McKenzie and his colleague, Susan Patel. The situation called to mind what had happened four years ago, when he had lost the radio link with Laura, and now Jenner felt that he had every reason to worry.
He tried to raise McKenzie by radio, but the only reply was the buzz and hiss of static. ‘McKenzie . . . Jenner calling. Come in, McKenzie.’ He gave it three long minutes, then slammed down the speaker. He tried getting through to Patel on her own frequency, with the same result.
He wiped his palms down the front of his shirt and picked up the speaker. He drew his swivel chair closer to the desk and leaned over the set.
For the second time that morning he got through to Martin Chang, at a position not far from where McKenzie and Patel should have been. The receiver crackled. ‘Chang here, boss. Anything wrong?’
‘Martin, nothing to worry about.’ The lie came easily. He didn’t want to spook his men with alarmist talk of disappearances. ‘I’m having difficulty contacting Bob. He’s down in Ey’an territory. Will you try to raise him or Sue and have them get back to me?’
Chang was no fool. ‘The Ey’an sector should be within your range, boss . . . You don’t think they’re in difficulty? Their flier—’
‘There’s been no distress signals, Martin.’
‘What chance that both their radios packed in at the same time?’ Chang voiced the question that was worrying Jenner. ‘Okay, boss. I’ll try to raise Mac. Speak to you soon.’
Jenner replaced the speaker and leaned back in his seat. He had not seen or heard Cahla enter the room - her grace and poise was that of a practised hunter. She stood on one leg, the foot of the other tucked easily into her upper thigh, and leaned against the arm of his chair.
He reached up and took her hand. She could speak English, but silence was her preferred medium: she communicated her thoughts and feelings in other ways; touches, glances, gestures.
Jenner could never quite banish his amazement when he looked upon the tribes-people of the southern continent. They were a white race, with sun-bronzed skin and bleached fair hair - and it was incongruous to see an essentially European people so at home in the hostile environment of the alien jungle. The tribes were the descendants of German and Scandinavian colonists who had settled and farmed the continent hundreds of years ago. Their devolution to the status of semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers was still more ironic when one considered the fact that the early settlers had belonged to a religious order seeking isolation in which to practise their fundamentalist beliefs.
The founding fathers would never have recognised the quick, wild spirits that haunted the jungle with the ease of natives born.
Cahla was seven years old, almost twelve by Terran reckoning, a slim, elfin creature with long, tanned limbs and ragged blonde hair, through the fringe of which her blue eyes gazed in characteristic silence, missing nothing.
Jenner often stared into her bright blue eyes and wondered at the world she looked out upon, and the alien landscape of her mind behind those eyes.
Now he squeezed her fingers. She gave him a glance - she almost never smiled - and slipped from the room.
He was startled by the chime of the radio.
‘Martin?’
‘No luck, boss. Not a word from McKenzie or Patel.’
‘Okay, Martin. Thanks.’
‘Ah, boss - do you want us to go south and search—?’
‘No, stay where you are. This is more than likely something of nothing.’
‘Very well,’ Chang replied, sounding far from convinced.
Jenner cut the connection.
Cahla was sitting on the bottom step of the verandah with her legs outstretched, the heel of her right foot notched between the toes of her left. Jenner pushed through the flimsy fly-netting door and eased himself down the steps, instantly wearied by the furnace-like heat. He sat down behind Cahla. She hung her arms over his legs and laid her head in his lap. He wondered how often they had been together like this over the past three years. Often when the teams were out, he and Cahla would seek each other, as if in some mutual empathic need, and spend silent hours together. Or, sometimes, when things were not going well, not so silent hours: he would talk to her at length, tell her his problems, how things were going with the evacuation plans - and she would listen, the expression on her fine, faceted face neutral as she stared off into the jungle.
He often wondered if he really knew the girl who called herself Cahla, or if what he assumed he knew of her, the girl’s likes and dislikes, reactions and mannerisms, were nothing more than a collection of details seen through positively prejudiced eyes. She was young, she was beautiful, and she looked so much as he imagined his daughter might have looked now, had she still been alive.
Absently he stroked her long hair. The sun was a hazy circle high above the horizon. In the five years since his posting to Tartarus, the sun had swollen to twice its former size, and the activity upon its bloody surface had increased. He often stared in fascination at the haemoglobin rush of sunspots across the swollen disc.
Cahla said, ‘Is missing, McKenzie? Worried, you?’
He laid a hand across the top of her head like some benign phrenologist. ‘McKenzie and Patel. I tried to radio them - no reply.’ He forever found himself mincing his grammar when talking to Cahla.
‘Tallman, darkman, funnyman, McKenzie?’
Jenner smiled to himself, smoothing her hair. ‘Yes, all those things. I feel responsible, Cahla.’
A hesitation. ‘Responsible?’
‘It means . . . because of me they went out this time, because of me they are missing.’
There was no response from the tamed jungle girl. He wondered if she understood.
Discounting the malfunction of both their radios, and the possibility that their flier had crashed, he wondered what else might have happened to McKenzie and Patel. They had never had any trouble with the tribes-people before. That left only the possibility of wild animals, the chowl and the ferocious primates that dwelled in the jungle. But both team members were armed and knew how to look after themselves.
‘I feel bad,’ Jenner said to himself. ‘Irrational as it is, that’s how I feel.’
Six months ago Director Magnusson, head of the evacuation programme based in Baudelaire, had contacted Jenner. He’d taken the call in the operations room, Cahla crouching by his chair and staring wide-eyed at the swollen image of the Director on the wall-screen.
Regarding the Ey’an,’ Magnusson said, glancing up from a computer read-out, ‘I’ve been assessing your report and we’ve come to a decision.’
Jenner had nodded, uncomfortable. He had petitioned the Director for more time in which to win the trust of the Ey’an.
‘We’ve decided to go ahead with the “gift to the natives” option,’ the Director said, holding up one of the seemingly innocuous oddments. ‘Time is of the essence. I’ll send down a consignment of knives, pots and pans for distribution among the Ey’an. Each item will contain a radio transmitter. When the time comes, we’ll use them to locate and round up the tribe - utilising force if necessary. Any objections?’
Jenner had a few, but the Director had heard them all before. He had asked a couple of routine questions before Magnusson cut the connection. Sensing his unease, Cahla looked up at him with concern.
When the crate of gee-gaws had arrived, Jenner sent McKenzie and Patel to Ey’an territory to hand out the gifts.
Four days ago he suggested that they return to monitor the success of the distribution. It should have been a routine field-trip; there was no way he could have foreseen the present situation. He told himself that he should not feel responsible for what might have happened out there, but that did nothing to ease his nagging guilt.
That afternoon he sat down at the computer in his study and began the monthly report. A couple of hours later, not halfway through listing his teams’ progress, he decided to complete the report later. He moved to the communications room and tried again to raise McKenzie and Patel, without success.
At sunset, Cahla found him staring at the wall. She pushed the fly-netting door open with her toes and laid her cheek against the jamb. ‘Jen, make food I. Hungry you?’
They dined on the back verandah as the sun slipped over the horizon and the evening cooled. Cahla had prepared a salad, and they ate in customary silence, Cahla sitting cross-legged on her chair and picking through her food like a bird. Later she fell into her hammock and swung herself to sleep, a negligent arm and leg hanging free.
Jenner sat and stared into the dark jungle beneath the fulminating sky, contemplating McKenzie and what action he should take. Tomorrow, if there was still no word from his deputy, he would contact Baudelaire and request, as he had done four years ago when Laura went missing, that Magnusson should send out a search party.
The sun was a burning filament on the horizon, giving off slow-motion fountains of molten ejecta, when he left Cahla sleeping peacefully and moved inside.
He sat wearily on his bed before undressing. He picked up the holo-cube from the bedside table and stared at it. His wife smiled out at him - an attractive woman, in her late thirties when the cube was made, with a tanned, lined face and short blonde hair streaked with grey. She had an arm around Rebecca, pulling the little girl to her chest.
Jenner had stared so often and so hard at the image of his daughter that now in his mind’s eye, when he thought of Rebecca, he saw only this likeness: a laughing face, fair hair, wide, bright blue eyes . . . Over the years the pain of grief had muted, from a sharp, insistent agony, to a dull infrequent ache. But the years had also dulled his memory. It was a cruel paradox that now, when at last he could bear to think about his daughter, he had difficulty recalling specific instances of their time together. He could no longer recall the sound of her voice, her laughter.
The death of their daughter, in a monorail accident on Earth seven years ago, had brought Jenner and Laura closer together. They had been approaching the end of their marriage contract, and in all likelihood might never have renewed it but for their loss. They had discovered more about each other in the hollow year that followed the accident than they had in the previous five. Jenner had found a strength and resolve deep within Laura that made the thought of being without her - of going through the process of finding someone else, and trying to get to know them just as well - impossible to contemplate, and clearly Laura had undergone a similar re-evaluation. When Jenner suggested, tentatively, afraid of being spurned, that perhaps they should take out another contract, she had agreed without hesitation.
Two years later Jenner was posted to Tartarus to work on the evacuation programme, and Laura had secured a grant from her university to study the planet’s tribal people.
They had lived together at the Station for a year, Laura going off on field-trips into the interior for weeks at a time, sometimes accompanied by students, but often alone. Their marriage settled into a comfortable, amicable relationship, no longer passionate, but full of trust and understanding. Their only difference of opinion concerned the fate of the tribes-people. Through her contact with the tribes, Laura had come to sympathise with their desire to die with their planet, a desire Jenner admitted he could understand, but could hardly accede to . . . Their infrequent arguments centred on the fate of the tribes: Laura had argued that as an intelligent people they should be granted their wish to remain when the supernova blew; Jenner that they were a primitive people who should not be allowed to commit collective suicide because of belief in pagan gods and a desire to be reunited with their ancestors.
They had argued bitterly on the night before she disappeared. She had tried to persuade him to talk to Magnusson about allowing certain tribes to remain on Tartarus, but Jenner had refused. He could not be part of sanctioning what might be described as genocide.
The following morning, Laura had taken a power-boat for a three week trip upriver with the intention of filming a local tribe. They had kept in radio contact for a day, and then she had failed to answer his call. He had not been unduly worried at the time. Laura knew the jungle well, knew how to look after herself. But as the next day passed without word from her, and then the next, his earlier confidence evaporated, turned to alarm. On the fourth day he called Baudelaire and, later, accompanied the search team on a sweep of the route she had taken. They had found nothing, no wreckage, no personal possessions, no trace of Laura’s passage upriver. Jenner had contacted all the tribes-people in the area, but they had come across no sign of his wife. After a fortnight the search was called off, and the sudden inaction pitched Jenner into despair. He thought back to their argument on the night before she vanished, and was consumed by guilt that their final words had been so bitter.
As the weeks turned into months, and then, incredibly, into years, he lived day by day with the thought always at the back of his mind that today she would return, and, if not today, then certainly tomorrow. Like this, bit by bit, he managed to survive. Over the past year he had even come to consider what before would have been unthinkable – how Laura might have met her end: an accident on the river, a wild animal attack, illness . . . He only hoped that, however she had died, it had been swift and painless.
He replaced the holo-cube on the bedside table, swallowed a couple of sleeping pills, and passed a dreamless night.
* * * *
The following morning Jenner was in the communications room, having once again failed to reach McKenzie and Patel, when Cahla burst in. The screen door smashed against the wall and shivered in its flimsy frame. She stood in the opening, eyes wide. ‘Jen! Come, now. Come!’
‘What’s wrong, Cahla?’ He had rarely seen her this animated.
She leaned forward, balling her fists and banging the air in frustration. ‘Come now! Out there - person!’
She grabbed his hand and tugged him from his chair.
They crossed the verandah and went down the steps, then halted in the compound. Jenner grimaced as the sunlight pounded his bare head. Silently, with a peculiarly alert stance and minute movements of her head, Cahla scrutinised the perimeter fence on three sides.
He put a hand around her shoulders. ‘I don’t see anyone.’
‘Here, was! Man!’
‘Who? A team worker? McKenzie?’
‘Nai - tribesman.’
At that second, Jenner saw him. Evidently, so did Cahla. Her body stiffened beneath his arm. She pointed. ‘There!’
The tribesman was jogging around the compound, inside the perimeter fence. From time to time he dropped to one knee, sketched something in the dust with his finger, then continued running.
‘What’s he doing, Cahla?’
‘Jungle spirits follow him,’ she said. ‘Do karakai, he.’
‘What does he want?’
Cahla twisted her lips to one side of her face, admitting puzzlement.
Never in his tour of duty here had a tribesman come to him - always it had been the other way around. He realised that he was sweating. He pulled a bandanna from his pocket and mopped his face.
The tribesman disappeared around the rear of the compound, and minutes later reappeared and jogged to the spot where Jenner had first seen him. Then he stopped, turned and faced them. For a couple of seconds he stood still, very upright, something proud and indomitable, almost arrogant, in his bearing.
Then he walked with measured paces across the compound.
He was tall and slim, tanned and blond. He wore a loincloth and body-paint, green stripes covering his torso and arms. In a diagonal from shoulder to hip was slung a thong of leather, holding a dozen darts like a primitive bandolier. In his left hand he carried a long blow-pipe.
Watching him, Jenner could not dispel the sense of incongruity at beholding a Caucasian in such a guise.
The tribesman stopped before them. His expression was neutral but bold, reminding Jenner of Cahla. Oddly, he felt suddenly possessive of the girl, and he tightened his grip around her shoulders.
He held out his free hand. ‘Welcome to the station.’
Cahla spoke in her own tongue, translating. The guttural sound seemed strange coming from lips he had heard speaking only fractured English.
The tribesman replied. ‘Dhaykum arkim, karan ee.’
Cahla glanced up at Jenner. ‘Tribesman, say he, “Honoured he. Be here pleased he.”‘
‘Can you ask him where he comes from? What he wants here?’
Cahla stared at the tribesman, repeating the questions. The tribesman shifted his gaze from the girl to Jenner, then back again. He nodded, tipping his head quickly upwards.
His reply was a rapid stream of incomprehensible plosives. Jenner assumed an expression of polite attention. In the full glare of the sun, he was beginning to wilt.
When the tribesman paused, Cahla said, ‘Far away from. Ey’an he. With you talk he. His name - Makhabi.’
Jenner took hold of Cahla’s chin. ‘Ey’an he? Are you sure?’
She gave a restricted nod. ‘Yay, Ey’an he.’
He felt suddenly dizzy with a combination of the intense heat and the unprecedented situation.
‘Will you tell Makhabi to come into the shade?’ he said, gesturing towards the verandah.
Reluctantly, it seemed, the tribesman agreed. He followed Jenner and Cahla up the steps. The transition from sunlight to shade was as refreshing as entering a pool of cool water. They sat in a triangle, cross-legged, on the rush matting.
‘Will you tell Makhabi that two of my workers visited the Ey’an people three days ago. Did he see them? Do his people know what happened to my friends?’
Cahla repeated the questions. Makhabi spoke quickly, perhaps dismissively.
Jenner nodded as Cahla translated the replies. Again, Makhabi assumed ignorance. He knew nothing. ‘Ask him what he wishes to discuss with me, what he wants to talk to me about.’
This question, when relayed, provoked a torrent of words from Makhabi. Cahla nodded at intervals, taking in his speech. At last the tribesman stopped, and the girl licked her lips, looking at Jenner from beneath her fringe.
‘Say he, with him go you. Land of Ey’an people. Will be safe you. Danger no.’
‘What do his people want with me?’
Cahla nodded. ‘Kancha ki, leader Ey’an people - with you talk. Ey’an people and dying sun about.’
Jenner released a breath, staring into the tribesman’s green eyes. He decided that there was no reason why he could not leave the station - it was the perfect opportunity not only to look into what had happened to McKenzie and Patel, but to speak face to face with the leader of the Ey’an people, an honour never before accorded to his team.
‘Very well, Cahla. Tell him, yes. I’ll go. I’ll ready a flier and we’ll set off in . . . say one hour.’
Cahla turned to the tribesman, repeated Jenner’s answer. Makhabi stared at Jenner, made a quick karate chop on the floor between them.
Cahla flinched.
‘What now?’
‘Say he, flier no! Flier evil. Up river in his boat go.’
‘Very well. But we’ll take my boat. Is that okay?’
Makhabi listened to Cahla, reluctantly nodded.
‘I need to collect some things, food and water, a tent.’ He hesitated, looked at Cahla. ‘Will you come with me, to translate?’
* * * *
On the few occasions that Jenner had seen the river from the air, it had appeared as a series of sluggish, serpentine loops and bends, the only interruption in the jungle which extended to the horizon in every direction. Seen from the boat, its speed reduced to walking pace by rafts of algae, the river was a claustrophobic avenue flanked by overhanging trees and often covered completely, a twilight tunnel in which everything, the heat, the animal cries, the very oppressiveness of this environment, was emphasised. From the air, the alienness of the jungle could be ignored - it might have been any tropical jungle, anywhere - but steering the boat upriver, passing grotesquely torsioned plants and trees, Jenner could be in no doubt that he was on an alien world a hundred light years from Earth.
Makhabi sat on the very prow of the boat, blow-pipe raised, his torso as erect as some primitive figurehead. The tribesman’s own boat was tethered to the stern by a length of plastic rope.
Jenner was at the stern, attending to the tiller. Between them sat Cahla, facing Jenner, her long legs outstretched. Before setting off, Jenner had erected an awning over the back of the boat. They were spared the full force of the sun, though nothing could be done to reduce the heat, and the humid air was as unbreathable as steam.
He glanced at his watch. They had been travelling for half a day. It was still a couple of hours from sunset. Ahead, the disc of the sun could be glimpsed down the channel of encroaching jungle. Tongues of flame licked from its circumference, and Jenner thought that it resembled those quaint illustrations of Earth’s own sun, drawn by ancient astronomers.
From time to time, great flying insects flickered from nowhere and alighted on the boat as if curious. Sometimes Cahla would put her face close to the magnificent, multicoloured creatures, admiring their beauty. Occasionally she flicked away the insects, her sour expression suggesting they were poisonous. Once she quickly plucked an insect between thumb and forefinger, pulled off its wings, removed its head and popped the resulting delicacy into her mouth.
Jenner sat back and watched the girl who over the course of the past three years he had come to love.
He often thought back to the day she arrived at the Station.
It had been almost a year after Laura’s disappearance, a year in which Jenner had become ever more withdrawn, unable to open up to those members of his team he had formerly considered his closest colleagues: Bob McKenzie, Chang and one or two others. He had been torn by the desire to leave the Station and Tartarus altogether, remove himself from the cause of his pain, and yet at the same time to remain there in the ludicrous hope that one day Laura might return.
Then one morning Martin Chang came running across the compound and into the operations room with news of the discovery. Jenner and a medic had followed him, leaving the compound and entering the margin of cleared jungle between the Station and the river. They had hurried down the timber walkway to where a tribal canoe was lodged in a tangle of reeds at the river’s edge.
The sight of the little girl lying in the canoe had taken Jenner’s breath away. Her resemblance to Rebecca was remarkable; the same fair hair, oval face, slightness of limbs. But perhaps what affected Jenner even more was that, laid out in the narrow confines of the canoe, she brought back memories of the very last time he had looked upon his daughter, at rest in her coffin on the day before the funeral.
He had left Chang and the medic to revive her, returned to his work, and tried to put the girl from his thoughts. She was taken to the infirmary, washed and examined and pronounced fit and well. Jenner heard from Chang that most probably the girl - Cahla, she called herself - had been fishing in the boat, had fainted and drifted downstream.
Jenner resolved to take no interest in the girl. He would detail one of his team to take her out on the next field-trip and reunite her with her tribe.
Then, one night, the cumulative loss of his wife and his daughter became too much, and had to be quelled in some fashion, with drink or drugs, or human contact. He crossed the compound to the infirmary, slipped inside and sat by Cahla’s bed, staring at her as she slept.
In the days that followed he had shied away from becoming involved with Cahla. She would be leaving soon, returning to her people, and to allow himself to get close to her would be folly. But the tribes approached by Chang claimed no knowledge of Cahla, and as the weeks turned to months, and Jenner found himself becoming involuntarily drawn to the girl, he ordered off the search for her people, claiming that his teams had better things to do. Not a day passed without his spending an hour or two in her company. He taught her to speak English, played simple games with her, showed her around the Station. Her savagery, her elemental nature, seemed at odds with the restricted environment of the Station, and yet she never made any move or request to leave. After a year with Cahla around the place, it came to Tenner with a sudden heart-stopping jolt of realisation that he could no longer contemplate life without her. She had ceased to be a replacement, a substitute for his daughter, but had become an individual in her own right, a person with her own characteristics, moods and temperaments. He decided that, when he left Tartarus, Cahla would leave with him.
And what cheered Jenner was that Cahla had taken to him; not with any demonstrative show of affection or emotion - hugs and kisses were not part of the way of life of the tribal peoples - but in her own, calm, neutral way, the way she followed him, watched him through her fringe, was always by his side when he talked to his team in the briefing room.
The first time she disappeared, Jenner thought that she had finally had enough of this strange new life, had decided to return to her true existence in the jungle, and despite the intellectual realisation that this was for the best, he still could not help mourning his loss.
Then, three days later, Cahla returned, the waist-thong of her loincloth hung with a dozen frogs, a furry monkey-like creature slung over her shoulder like a backpack. She carried a blow-pipe, fashioned from a bamboo-analogue, clutched in her small fist.
From time to time she would disappear like this, be gone two or three days, or sometimes longer, and then reappear - and Jenner’s guilt that he had perverted the course of her life was assuaged by the evidence that she could still function in her own environment.
* * * *
The sun had set, but the sky still glowed with flickers and pulses of orange light. Makhabi gestured that they should pull into the shore for the night. They made camp on a broad curve of sand. Makhabi moored the boat to the trees while Jenner erected the dome-tent and Cahla broke out the rations. They ate in silence, seated outside the dome, Jenner drinking water to replace the fluid lost during the day. When it came to the sleeping arrangements, Makhabi insisted on remaining outside, sitting cross-legged with his blow-pipe at the ready. Jenner shared the dome with Cahla, opaqued the membrane against the flickering night, and soon fell asleep.
He was disturbed only once during the night, and even then he was only half-awoken. He heard some small sound within the dome, and realised that it was Cahla, nestling close to him. She was crying quietly, inexplicably. Jenner put an arm around her, and after a while she ceased her sobbing and slept.
They set off before sunrise in the morning, the steady throb of the engine the only sound in the pre-dawn stillness. Cahla seemed her normal self, and Jenner refrained from questioning her about her sadness of the night before.
For the next few miles the river was entirely overgrown with a verdant mat of vegetation. They proceeded down a long, twilit tunnel in which the territorial cries of birds and beasts echoed eerily. Makhabi seemed all the more alert today. He sat bolt upright with his blow-pipe raised to his lips.
Cahla explained in a whisper, ‘Here, bad haranga from trees drop. Quickly kill us, eat. Careful. Careful must be.’
At last they emerged from the covered stretch of river, the daylight blindingly bright to eyes grown accustomed to the aqueous half-light. For the next few hours they made good speed along a winding length of river free from algae and weeds. Around noon, after a light meal, Cahla offered to take over at the tiller. They exchanged positions, and Jenner made himself as comfortable as possible in the bottom of the boat, and dozed.
* * * *
He was awoken by Cahla some time later. ‘Jen, Jen. Now wake up.’
They were no longer moving; the engine was silent. Jenner sat up, working the aches from his back. ‘Have we arrived?’
‘Nai,’ Cahla said. ‘Now long walk.’
He stepped onto the bank of the river and between them they ferried the provisions ashore. Makhabi unfastened his own boat, and tied both craft to the bole of a tree. Then he spoke to Cahla.
She translated, ‘Four, five hour walk, say he.’
They divided the canisters of water between them and set off into the jungle along a well-worn path, Makhabi leading the way and Cahla bringing up the rear. They halted repeatedly to allow Jenner to rest and take water. Already his shirt was rank with sweat, and he was feeling light-headed. After three hours he exchanged positions with Cahla and watched the girl negotiate the uneven surface of the jungle floor with swift-footed ease, effortlessly at home in this hostile environment.
They came upon the encampment of the Ey’an people without warning. One moment they were striding through the jungle, identical to every other stretch they had traversed, and then they were on the edge of a vast clearing, the absence of trees allowing the sunlight to fall en bloc - so that for the first few seconds the details of the camp were lost in a blinding dazzle. Jenner shielded his eyes, made out a series of small, conical huts flanking the clearing; at the far end was a long communal hut raised above the ground on stilts.
Only then did Jenner notice the people. They stood about in one and twos; men, women and naked children, all tall, tanned and fair, the males of the tribe daubed with verdant stripes like Makhabi’s. They had ceased what they had been doing to turn and stare at the sudden appearance of Jenner and his companions, and he felt uncomfortable under the weight of their collective attention.
Then he saw something which increased his pulse and sent a prickling sensation across his scalp.
Across the clearing stood McKenzie’s flier, its bulbous glass fuselage reflecting the sunlight, rotors drooping.
Before he could react, gather his thoughts and question Makhabi, a welcoming committee of three Ey’an people, two old men and a woman, approached from the communal hut and crossed the clearing. From somewhere, more tribes-people emerged. They stood on the periphery of the clearing, a packed gallery of silent spectators.
The three elders paused before Jenner.
Their expressions were unsmiling, which in itself was not unusual. Even so, Jenner thought he detected an air of hostility in their manner.
‘Jenner?’ the old woman said. ‘Come. Follow.’
Before the three turned, Jenner asked, ‘McKenzie and Patel? Where are they?’
‘Later. Now, come.’
Only then did he wonder how the woman had come to learn English. He looked around for Cahla, as much to see a friendly face as for some explanation, but in his trepidation he could not make her out among the other tribes-people.
He followed the three elders across the clearing, aware of a thousand pairs of eyes monitoring his progress. He arrived at the communal hut and followed the elders up a flimsy ladder lashed together from saplings.
The interior of the hut was dim. From the entrance he was unable to see more than a few metres before him. He could, however, make out the rattan walls on either side, and two rows of silent, seated Ey’an people. The elders proceeded slowly, with a certain ceremony, down the aisle formed by the tribes-people. Someone at his side - he saw that it was Makhabi - touched his arm in a gesture for him to follow.
As he walked, the far end of the hut resolved itself. Two figures were seated in front of him, cross-legged. The elders joined the seated figures, so that now a phalanx of five Ey’an people confronted him. Makhabi gestured for him to sit down. Stiffly, tired after the trek through the jungle, Jenner lowered himself to the floor.
Later he would look back in amazement at how the human mind could absorb so much shock and still continue to function. He was surprised at how calm he was, then, as he stared into the shadows and saw his wife.
‘Laura . . . ?’
It was Laura - four years older, thinner, totally grey-haired now, but Laura still. She was not smiling, but Jenner told himself that her expression softened as she looked upon his confusion.
‘Jen, welcome to the Ey’an-heth, the wise council of the Ey’an.’
She was naked but for a loincloth, and her tanned torso was painted with green slashes. The shock was making him dizzy. ‘Laura?’
‘I’ve been rehearsing this meeting for a long time, Jen,’ she said softly, ‘dreading the inevitable and knowing that it was necessary, for both of us. Listen to me and try to understand. I know you will feel anger, resentment - those feelings are natural - but try to control them, understand what I have to tell you.’
Jenner cradled his head in his hands. ‘I don’t think I can understand anything now. None of this makes any sense.’
‘Please, listen to me. Four years ago I left you and the Station and found ... I found what for years I had been looking for, without really understanding that I had been looking for anything. It happens like that - you know what you have been seeking only when you find it. And I found it among the Ey’an people.’
It was all he could do to stare at her.
‘Ever since . . . what happened to Rebecca, I was dissatisfied with what I had, with what I could attain from the life I was leading.’
‘I meant that little to you!’
‘It was nothing to do with you. It was just ... I needed another life. A life of simplicity and certainty, a life close to the earth.’
Jenner interrupted, ‘You can’t be happy here, among these people . . . You’re an intelligent woman.’
‘And I thought you were an intelligent man, Jen. I thought you might possibly have understood that even a so-called unsophisticated people can be wise and compassionate.’
As she spoke, Jenner recognised the Laura of old, the Laura he had loved — and he wanted to reach out and take her in his arms, and in so doing erase the misery of his loss.
She was speaking. ‘I wanted to tell you all this, Jen - but it was not the reason I asked you here.’ She paused, looked around at the elders. They gestured, inclined their heads.
She continued, ‘The Ey’an people want you to know that they are happy here and wish to remain on Tartarus until the very end, that they do not wish to undergo the evacuation you are here to oversee. The Ey’an worship the power and the inevitability of the supernova, and will seek its salvation when the great day comes. In the aftermath of the firestorm, we will be reunited with our ancestors, and the ones we have loved and lost—’
He stared at her. Slowly, understanding came to him. ‘You believe that by staying here, Rebecca will be returned to you?’
Her gaze was unremitting. ‘It is what my people believe. They crave reunion with their ancestors, who have become Gods. Don’t you see that to remove these people from here, from their very roots, would destroy them?’
He gestured feebly. ‘Laura . . . it’s my duty to ensure the complete evacuation of all tribal peoples from this continent. I . . .’
‘Let me warn you,’ Laura said, strength in her tone, ‘that we do not intend to leave Tartarus.’ She called out something in an alien tongue, and there was activity behind the seated elders.
‘This will serve as a warning,’ she said, and the brutality of her tone sent a shiver of foreboding through Jenner. ‘We had to make a stand, a gesture of our intent. I suggest that you take heed.’
As she spoke, four Ey’an people carried two crude stretchers from the shadows, and laid them between the elders and Jenner.
He could only stare. He felt something freeze within him as he looked upon the contorted bodies of McKenzie and Patel, at the long darts protruding from their chests. The shadows within the hut concealed their faces, and for this he was thankful.
‘How could you . . . ?’ he cried.
‘If it will persuade you of the wishes of the Ey’an people, then their sacrifice will have been worthwhile. It was the only way we had of demonstrating that we have the means to resist all your efforts to remove us. If you come for us in future, we will be ready.’
‘You don’t know what evil you’ve committed, in the name of your so-called freedom,’ he said. ‘Not only the deaths of McKenzie and Patel, but the genocide of the Ey’an, the extinction of all future generations.’
He climbed to his feet, sick with the heat and the turn of events. ‘If you think you’ve heard the end of this—’ he began.
Laura stood and faced him. ‘Is that a threat? Do you mean that you will return with reinforcements, after tracing us with your trinkets?’
He stared down at her. ‘How . . . ?’ he began.
He was aware of the eyes of the Ey’an people, laughing at his bewilderment.
‘You tortured—’ he said, gesturing towards the bodies. Before putting his friends to death, had they tortured them to extract the information about the gifts?
‘We tortured no one. They died swiftly and without pain.’
‘Then how . . . ?’
‘I thought you might resort to trickery to effect our evacuation. We fought like with like. We had to know what you were planning.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said, his heart thumping with sudden dread.
‘We had to have someone in the Station itself,’ Laura said.
Her words filled him with disbelief. ‘Cahla?’ he whispered.
‘We had to do it,’ she said, unsmiling. ‘It was the only way.’
‘How . . .’ he managed, ‘how could you be so . . .’
‘We had to save our people. All else does not matter.’
Jenner cried openly. ‘She’s coming back with me! You can’t take her—!’
‘Jen,’ Laura said, something approaching tenderness in her tone, ‘please go now. Cahla is one of us, and always will be.’
No!’ He wanted to argue, wanted to hit out at her, and at the same time wanted only to be far away from the woman who had once been his wife.
Makhabi gripped his upper arm and escorted him from the hut and into the clearing. He shook himself free from the tribesman’s grip, calling Cahla’s name and dashing like a madman among the Ey’an. Makhabi caught him with ease, strong arms restricting his movement. A thousand pairs of eyes watched him as he stumbled towards the jungle path. He stared into every face; if only Cahla could see him now, witness the straits into which she’d cast him, then surely she would return with him ... He wanted to find her, tell her that he forgave her for what she had done, that he understood; he wanted to ask her if her affection had been genuine, or nothing more than an act.
But, though he often thought he saw her among the myriad Ey’an faces, he could not be certain.
He stopped defiantly at the edge of the clearing, looked back in an attempt to make out the girl, if only to retain in his mind’s eye a last picture of her to carry with him from the planet. The only face he recognised was his wife’s: Laura was standing beside the ladder of the communal hut, staring at him across the clearing.
Then Makhabi took his arm and forced him into the jungle.
He recalled nothing later of the long walk to the river, escorted all the way by the tribesman - only the eventual sight of the sluggish river and the ball of the setting sun. He climbed aboard his boat and started the engine. As he moved slowly away from the bank without a backward glance, his speed impeded by the surface weeds, he was overcome by the weight of a terrible depression at the thought of the fate to which his wife had consigned herself, Cahla, and the Ey’an people.
He sat at the tiller and wept.
* * * *
Jenner had no idea how long had elapsed when he heard a cry from the bank of the river. He looked up, but could make out nothing. Then the cry came again - animal in its urgency.
Something appeared from the foliage on the river bank and shot into the water like a spear. She did not emerge until the parabola of her dive brought her up beside the boat. She gripped the gunwale and pulled, so that the boat rocked and her streaming head showed above the side. Her bright eyes stared him through the wet strands of her fringe, her watchful expression caught between fear and entreaty.
His heart swelling with an emotion he found hard to contain, Jenner reached out and pulled Cahla aboard. Then, his arm around the quietly crying girl, he gunned the engine and steered the boat downstream, towards the Station and salvation.
* * * *
|
T |
he landscape that enclosed Connery and his campsite was stark and inhospitable - the crater of a long-extinct volcano a kilometre wide, its inner walls encircling a perfect disc of still, green water. A fitting venue, Connery thought, for the final act of a drama that had lasted five years. For that long he had tracked the last existing Vulpheous on Tartarus, at first following no more than folk tales and rumours, later picking up the trail of the creature sighted by mariners and islanders across the southern sea from the continent of Iriarte to the archipelago of Demargé. Now he had traced it to its lair, its final resting place before the sun went supernova.
Three days ago he had pitched his dome and set up his equipment, and it was while he was working in the intense heat of the early morning that his hopes were confirmed. According to the fisher-folk now evacuated from the islands of the chain, the last remaining Vulpheous on the planet had emerged from the sea a year ago, scaled the incline of the volcano, and disappeared over the side in search of its aeons-old spawning lake. Connery had taken their stories lightly - he’d been disappointed too many times in the past - but, while installing his monitors beside the water, he was alerted by a bubbling disturbance on the surface of the lake. He turned in time to see the grey bulk of the creature’s huge head break the surface, water cascading from its hide in scintillating cataracts. He stared in awe and exquisite relief for a minute while the Vulpheous took in air to sustain it in its submarine lair for four to five days. Then the creature ejected a spume of water like a cockade from its cranial blow-hole, and submerged, leaving the lake serene and undisturbed. For the next three nights Connery worked hard erecting his equipment in preparation for the creature’s next appearance.
Now he stepped from the air-conditioned coolness of his dome and was enveloped by the cloying evening heat. He wore only shorts and boots, and within seconds his exposed skin was covered with an irritating film of sweat. He walked down the incline, through a rattling scree of pumice, towards the water’s edge.
These days the sun was so huge and emitted so much light that it was no longer discernible as a sphere: it filled the sky during the day with a pure white glow, blinding to look upon. During the pulsing hours of night, the heavens were a gaudy, beribboned display of magenta and tangerine strata, and this was when Connery preferred to work. It was hot, even then, but not as hot as the flesh-burning, furnace heat of day.
He stepped beneath the sun-reflective canopy where he stored his equipment, found the air-tanks and strapped them to his back. He exchanged his boots for flippers and picked up the underwater flashlight, then fitted his mask and stepped from the canopy into the water.
It was a thick, warm soup that offered no relief from the twilight humidity. As he waded further into the lake, the gradient of the slope quickly taking the water level past his knees and groin, the algae seemed to suck at his flesh. Suppressing a shiver of disgust, he switched on the flashlight and kicked out from the shore. Within seconds he had penetrated the mat of algae and was swimming through an aqueous, jade-green realm, the water becoming cooler as he descended.
For ten years after Madelaine’s death he had lived alone, the first five spent exploring many of the Thousand Worlds - less, he realised later, through a genuine curiosity than a desire to fill his time and thoughts with anything other than his grief. Then, after something told to him by a physician on Solomon’s Reach, he had come to Tartarus in search of the Vulpheous. Once more his life had a reason, a goal.
When he reached the area where he judged the creature had risen three days ago, he turned his flashlight into the depths and swam after its widening beam. It had occurred to him that the Vulpheous might not surface for a second time in exactly the same position. If it re-emerged at another part of the lake, then all his preparations would be in vain. It would be a tragedy if he wasted valuable time chasing the creature around the lake after assuming it to be so captive a target. The last TWC evacuation ship left Tartarus in three months, and Connery planned to be on it.
In the illumination of his flashlight, tiny silver fish turned as one like a million scintillating components of some larger, gestalt creature. The Vulpheous was not occupying the lake bed directly beneath the place where it had surfaced.
Connery manoeuvred himself into a standing position, moved his right flipper and turned the flashlight in a great probing circle. He was almost back where he’d started when the cone of light picked out what appeared to be a colossal boulder. He started, shocked, despite himself. He’d seen pix of the creature, even seen its great head in the flesh the other day, but nothing had prepared him for the fact of its size. Physically it resembled a sea elephant, though Connery estimated the Vulpheous to be fully twenty times bigger. It reposed on the lake bed in dolorous obesity, something tragic in its isolation. According to the islanders it was a female which, unable to be impregnated, had returned anyway to the place of its birth, not to spawn young but to die in the imminent supernova. Amid the piled flesh that was the creature’s head, Connery could see two tiny, bright yellow eyes, staring out at him. He felt a great sadness then, almost a regret at what he was doing.
He switched off his flashlight and rose quickly to the surface of the lake. The water warmed as he swam, and when he broke through the raft of algae he felt the heat of the night hot on his skin. From the pouch in his shorts he pulled an inflatable buoy, activated it and left the bulbous red and yellow marker on the algae above the creature’s position. When he returned to camp, he would recalibrate his equipment to the position of the buoy.
As he swam towards the shore and his camp, he thought of Madelaine. Upon his arrival on Tartarus, he had made a promise to her memory - a ridiculous and romantic thing to do, which his younger self would never have understood, but which somehow seemed right in the circumstances. That promise was close to being fulfilled.
He was wading from the lake, his limbs suddenly heavy, when he caught a glimpse of movement perhaps half a kilometre away to his right. At the narrow defile in the encircling crater, though which he himself had entered, he made out a small, human figure. It was moving slowly down the incline towards the lake. After assuming he was the only person on the island - perhaps even on the entire archipelago - it came as a shock to find that his triumphal arena had been invaded.
He shrugged off his air-tank and set to work on the equipment beneath the canopy.
* * * *
After her arduous, zigzag climb up the side of the volcano, Leona arrived exhausted at the gap in the rock overlooking the lake. She sat and stared down at the perfect circle, sudden tears blurring her vision. She wiped them away with the back of her hand, telling herself that she was no longer a child: she was a woman, now, and women didn’t - not even after spending three days canoeing from her island and climbing the volcano to the lake considered holy by her people.
She could have rested for longer, but decided to press on. Once she had pitched her tent beside the lake, and said her prayers to the healer, then she could rest for as long as she liked. It would be a reward for the hardship of getting this far. She had never really believed that she would succeed in crossing the straits, still less be able to scale the volcano. She had expected her boat to sink, or that she would collapse exhausted halfway up the mountainside. That she had made it this far was an omen: her pilgrimage would be a success.
She climbed to her feet and adjusted her pack, its leather thongs biting painfully into her shoulders. The ground on this inner rim of the crater had absorbed the heat of the setting sun, and the rock was griddle-hot beneath her bare feet. She picked her way carefully down the incline, trying to step in the shadows cast by the rocks that littered the slope. She wondered if her tribe would be thinking of her now, if her mother was wondering whether she had reached the holy lake. She glanced into the sky, at the colourful display that reminded her of the feathers of a belcher-bird, and tried to imagine the stars her mother had told her were once visible at night. It was hard to believe that her people were being carried to a new star aboard the great TWC ship - even though three weeks ago she had concealed herself behind a bush on her island and watched fearfully as it ate up her tribe and left Tartarus forever.
Now she was here, and perhaps if all went well she would one day be joining her people in their new home among the stars.
She was standing at the water’s edge, on a flat shelf of rock she thought would be a good place to erect her tent, when she saw that she was not alone. Three stone throws around the lake was a man. More than just his impressive height told her that he must be an off-worlder. There was a lot of machinery beneath a silver canopy, strange devices that Leona had never seen before, and farther up the slope was a silver living dome. The man was crouching beneath the canopy, working on his machinery.
She wondered if he was here for the same reason that she was - she could think of no other - and the thought worried her. She occupied herself by building her tent. She tied together the canes that had doubled as the frame of her pack, forming the outline of a pyramid. Then she unfolded the animal skin cover of the pack and draped it over the pyramid. She ducked inside, unrolled her sleeping blanket across the rock, and set out her scant possessions beside it: her comb, her eating bowl and cup, and her five important powders. It was dark inside the tent; she hoped that it would be as dark when the sun came up in the morning, affording her cool shade.
She left the tent and walked to the water’s edge. She sat cross-legged and said a prayer, paying her respects to the healer, telling it that at last she had arrived. Later, she would chant the mantra that her people’s holy-man had taught her, the ritual of the Summoning.
After prayers, she stripped off her dress and washed it in the lake, having to wade in to her neck to get past the plant-life. The water was like a balm on her hot and tired skin. She felt soothed by its warm envelopment, and at the same time blessed that she was sharing the lake with ultarrak. She fetched her cup from the tent and strained a quantity of water through the material of her dress. This she drank, slaking her thirst. She strained another cupful and carried it carefully to the tent for later. She laid her dress out on the hot rock, and then scraped the water droplets from her body. Within minutes she was dry, and not long after that so was her dress. She stepped into the garment, tied the laces up the front, and then stared along the shore of the lake to where the off-worlder was still busy beneath the canopy.
What was he doing? Why would a man from the stars camp beside the lake and set up his complicated machinery?
Once, when she was a girl, a small tribe of off-worlders wearing blue uniforms had come to her island in flying machines. The elders greeted them, and shared food and drink with the strange men and women, and then told the rest of the tribe that the off-worlders were people of honour and could be trusted. For days Leona had watched the strangers move around the island - counting people for the eventual evacuation, according to the elders. She had come to trust the tall men and women of the TWC, had even accepted fruit from a woman with hair the colour of blood-grass. Now she felt no fear of the off-worlder who had arrived at the lake before her, just a slight apprehension as to what he was doing here.
Refreshed after her ablutions, and comfortable in her clean dress, she walked along the shore towards the off-worlder’s camp.
He was still busy working with the machinery, his back to Leona, when she arrived at the canopy. She hitched up her dress around her knees, squatted, and hugged her shins. In silence she watched as he worked. He was doing something to two long, pointed mechanisms that were directed at the centre of the lake. As he worked, he talked to himself in a language unfamiliar to Leona.
He was even bigger than she had originally thought. His skin was a lighter shade of brown than hers, a copper tone that glistened with sweat. She watched his muscles as they slipped and tightened beneath his skin. The sight of his naked flesh reminded her of Yarta, a boy who had gone with the rest of them into the TWC ship, and how she had felt for him in those hopeless days before the evacuation.
She blushed when she realised that the man was watching her. She felt embarrassed, as if he had been able to read the run of her thoughts.
In her own language, more to divert his attention from her blushes than to elicit any reply, she asked him what he was doing here.
The man smiled gently, and shrugged his shoulders. He said something in his strange, soft language, and then returned to his machinery. From time to time he glanced from his work, his eyes lingering on her in a way Leona found at first invasive and then complimentary. She knew she was blushing again, in confusion: she had never before had the attentions of a grown man, and she was unsure how to respond.
She decided that his presence beside the lake had nothing to do with the healer. Off-worlders were ignorant of important things of the spirit - her people had laughed when the TWC off-worlders claimed they knew nothing of the sun god whose anger was causing the sun to explode - and clearly this man was more bothered about his machinery than about ultarrak.
She stood quickly and retraced her steps around the lake, increasing her pace when he called something after her. When she looked over her shoulder, he was standing beneath the canopy, wiping his hands on a rag and watching her.
Back at her tent, she mixed her powders in the bowl of water. She was careful with the white powder, the fehna - the right amount would bring relief, but too much could kill her. When the mixture had turned the water blood-red, she raised the bowl to her lips and drank the concoction in one long draft. She felt its heat coursing through her, and told herself that she could feel its restorative powers working already.
Later, when she felt the time was right, she left her tent. Her stomach fluttery with apprehension, she sat cross-legged before the lake, bowed her head and began the mantra of the Summoning.
* * * *
Connery saw the girl as she approached hesitantly around the curve of the lake. He watched her covertly until she was within a few metres of the canopy, then bent to his work. So is not to scare her off, he would let her initiate conversation. He’d had contact with the tribal people of the southern seas: they were an insular, shy people who were easily frightened by the brusque and confident ways of outsiders.
After perhaps an hour of silence, he glanced across at the girl. She was squatting on her heels, her brown arms hugging her shins. She seemed miles away, lost in her own thoughts. When she noticed him looking at her, she blushed and spoke so hurriedly that he was unable to catch the meaning of her corrupted French dialect.
He smiled and shrugged and returned to his work. From time to time he stole glances at her. She was tiny and dark skinned, with long black hair and a thin, high-cheekboned face.
She wore a short dress made from animal skins, sleeveless and laced up the front. He guessed her to be on the cusp of womanhood, perhaps sixteen or seventeen Earth years old.
He wondered what she was doing here, why she had not left the planet with the rest of her people. He wanted to ask her, but she seemed as shy as a bird - as if any sudden word or movement from him might frighten her away.
When she did finally leave, jumping up quickly and hurrying around the shore, he called to her to come back soon, then stood and watched her go. Something turned in his stomach, not a physical pang at the sight of her slim back and quick brown legs, but a more fundamental sense of longing and loss represented by her hurried retreat.
He did another hour’s work on the machinery, then retired to his dome. He showered in the recycled lake water, then sat in the air-conditioned luxury of the dome’s main section. He heated one of the pre-packed trays he’d bought from the TWC surplus stores at Baudelaire, and slowly ate the tasteless meal.
Beyond the transparent wall of the dome, he could see the sky losing its colour as the merciless sun rose on another day. In an hour or two the temperature would increase by forty degrees, by which time he would be asleep and oblivious to the hellish conditions outside. And when he woke, in approximately ten hours, he would be ready for when the Vulpheous next chose to surface.
He darkened the wall of his dome to shut out the heat and light of the day, then stepped outside and peered along the shore to the small, triangular irregularity of the girl’s tent. Already the heat was sapping, and the sun had not yet fully risen. He returned inside, filled a container with two litres of cool, sparkling water, picked up a food tray and left the dome.
The girl sat by the water’s edge, her back straight, her head bowed. As he walked along the shore, she uncrossed her legs, stood and ducked into her tent. He wondered how she hoped to exist here with no source of renewable foodstuffs and only the brackish water of the lake to drink.
He knelt outside the tent. ‘Hello,’ he called.
Almost immediately she drew aside a flap and peered out, her expression neutral. She ducked from the tent and sat cross-legged before him. He matched her posture, then held out the food and water.
She looked at him, her face radiant. She spoke in her singsong French patois. ‘For me?’
‘For you,’ he replied.
She stared at him. She spoke quickly, and though he caught only every other word, he was able to make out what might have been: ‘You can speak my language?’
‘A little - if you speak very slowly. Do you understand?’
She nodded, her eyes on the tray of food and container of water.
‘I thought you might like these. A present. Do you have rood of your own?’
Her eyes were big and brown, the whites very white. They widened as she said, ‘None, only water.’
He tried not to smile. ‘Then how do you hope to survive?’
She stared at him, her head on one side. Finally she shrugged, then cast her eyes down to where her fingers worried the imperfect hem of her animal-skin dress.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
She did not look up. ‘I am here to pay respects,’ she whispered. ‘With luck, I will be helped by ultarrak.’
Connery did not know the word. He shook his head. ‘There are no more people here, just you and me.’
She shrugged again, either unwilling or unable to enlighten him.
‘How did you get here?’ he asked. ‘From which island do you come?’
At this, she was more willing to speak. ‘By canoe,’ she said, glancing up at him, then shyly back down again at her fingers. ‘Three days from Sauvé.’
He had seen the island on his map, part of a small archipelago that ran parallel with the main Demargé chain.
‘But what of your people?’
‘My people have left for the stars in great ships.’
Connery shook his head, feeling a sudden stab of pity for the girl.
‘Why were you left behind? Why didn’t you go with them?’
She shook her head in a show of frustration. ‘No ... I could not go with them. I had to come to the holy lake. Later, I will join my people.’
‘Later? How much later? How long will you stay here?’
She had plucked the hem of her dress to a frayed tassel. ‘Perhaps a year, maybe more. It is not up to me.’
‘A year?’ he echoed. ‘A year without food?’
She looked up at him, her wide eyes critical of his ignorance. ‘I do not need food!’ she said.
‘But in a year . . . Don’t you realise that in a year the sun might have blown?’
‘A year, or two,’ she corrected him. ‘Who knows?’
A silence came between them as the heat of dawn increased. He could not keep his eyes from the swelling of her small breasts he glimpsed through the zigzag lacing of her dress.
At last the girl asked in a small voice, ‘Why are you here? What are your devices?’ She pointed towards the canopy.
Connery thought about his reply. If she considered the lake holy, would she think what he was doing a desecration?
‘I am a scientist,’ he said at last. ‘I am studying the lake.’
She nodded, glanced from him to the burning sky. She touched the food tray and container. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and made to move to her tent.
He reached out a hand, forestalling her. ‘I’m Connery,’ he said. ‘And you are?’
‘Leona,’ she said, and unsure how to respond to his gesture, touched the tips of his fingers with hers. He took her hand, and she stared at him in surprise.
‘I . . . There is plenty of spare room in my dome,’ he said. ‘And food. You can’t live in that thing - you wouldn’t last a day. Please, you can join me if you wish.’
Her watchful expression gave no indication that she had understood him. She pulled her fingers free of his and crawled into the tent, taking the food and water with her.
Connery made his way back to his dome, took another shower and lay on his bunk. He could not banish the thought of Leona from his mind. He considered the heat, unbearable even at this early hour. How might she exist with nothing but the flimsy skin tent to shade her as the day progressed?
* * * *
Leona sat cross-legged, clutching the cool container of water. Already the heat inside the tent was unbearable - a lank humidity that made a full breath impossible. Still, this was preferable to the direct light of the sun, which would have burned her skin in minutes.
She closed her eyes and considered the events of the past few hours. Her summons had failed to attract ultarrak. She had said the mantra just as the holy-man had told her, and emptied her mind of everything but her principal wish - but nothing had happened.
And then the off-worlder had arrived, bearing gifts.
She had assumed the correct posture to accept the gifts, and looked into his eyes only occasionally, as custom dictated in these matters. He should have said straight away, if he wanted her, that she was welcome to share his dwelling, but instead he had asked many questions, and only later asked her to join him in her dome. Well, perhaps customs were different on his home world.
One hour passed, then two, and the temperature inside the tent rose steadily. The sun was so bright that its invading light pierced the threadbare patches of her tent and smote her with a heat like burning coals. She took a long drink of cold water from Connery’s container, but seconds later she was thirsty again.
When she judged that a suitable duration had elapsed, she slipped from the tent and dismantled it, transforming it quickly back into a pack. She stowed away her cup and bowl, and made sure her six leather pouches of powders were secure. By the time she was ready, the sunlight was burning her skin, the heat searing her throat. Then, her heart beating wildly in her chest, she walked around the lake towards Connery’s dome.
Before she reached the off-worlder’s dwelling, she knelt and cast about for a sharp sliver of pumice. She found a suitable length, tested its point for sharpness, and slipped it into her belt.
She passed into the dome through two doors which opened like the petals of a flower, first the outer door and then the inner. It was cold inside, and Leona wondered how this was achieved. It was as if the inside of the dome was another world entirely.
Connery was not in the main chamber, but an opening gave access to a second, smaller room. Leona stepped silently across the threshold. The off-worlder lay on his bunk, staring at her.
At the sight of his gaze, Leona almost stopped dead in her tracks. A part of her wanted to turn and flee. Another part, which knew that this was what should happen, made her continue towards the bed.
She perched herself on the side of his bunk, very aware of his bulk beside her, though her eyes were staring at the floor. From her belt she pulled her pumice dagger, and reached out for his bare chest. Only then could she bring herself to look into his eyes. He was staring at her with a startled, shocked expression, his head raised from the bed. She smiled to indicate that she would be gentle. She held the point of the dagger above his sternum. He moved his hand, as if to stop her, but did not. Perhaps this was another of her people’s customs that differed slightly on the off-worlder’s homeplanet.
She lowered the dagger until its point touched the tanned flesh of his chest. Then she applied pressure. He let out a breath. A droplet of blood welled. She drew the dagger lightly down his torso, from sternum to abdomen, alternately scoring a bloody line and a thin white scratch across his skin. He gripped the side of the bunk, breathing hard, staring at her.
When she reached the muscles of his stomach, she raised the dagger and stood. With trembling fingers she unlaced her dress, let it drop and stepped from it. She stood before him naked, but his eyes never left her face. She raised the dagger for a second time, pressed it to the skin between her breasts, and winced as she dug the point home and scored it down her body. Then she threw aside the dagger and joined Connery, wound to wound, on the bed.
* * * *
For a few seconds as he came awake, Connery felt the weight of the girl in his arms and his thoughts were filled with the notion of Madelaine. He convinced himself that he could smell the natural scent of her small body, hear the familiar sound of her breathing.
Then he regained his senses and his awareness was flooded with the memories of Leona and her strange courtship rite. An immediate, stabbing sense of regret was soon sluiced away by the memory of what had passed between them. It was more than five years since he had last made love to a woman, during which time he told himself that he missed neither the intimacy nor the affection: the truth was that he had missed both, but as the years passed by he found it ever more difficult to initiate a relationship. Whether this inability was caused by the fear of losing a loved one for a second time, or the thought that he was being unfaithful to the memory of Madelaine, he did not know.
He carefully disengaged himself from her limbs and left her sleeping on the bunk. He dressed quickly, hardly taking his eyes from the girl. She rolled onto her back, into the space he had vacated, and twitched slightly in her sleep.
He was about to leave the dome to check his equipment before the surfacing of the Vulpheous when Leona spasmed, her whole body convulsing for an instant as if electrocuted. This brought her awake; she sat up, shivering and staring across at him. Her mouth moved, but no words came. She lay back, staring up at the apex of the dome and crying. She was hugging her shoulders and pulling her knees up to her chest, as if in an effort to warm herself. Connery rushed across to her, tried to hold her. She pushed his arms away, pointed across the chamber to her pack on the floor. ‘In there’ she gasped. ‘Powder.’
He almost tore the pack apart in a bid to get at its contents. He pulled out half a dozen pouches heavy with crystallised substances and stared across at Leona.
‘Water!’ she cried.
He fetched a water container and a cup. ‘Now what? For chrissake what do I do?’
‘A little ... a little of each powder in the cup.’
His fingers huge and useless, he pulled the drawstring on the first pouch and nipped out an amount of yellow powder. He held it up to Leona, who nodded, watching him with eyes wide in desperation as he transferred the powder to the cup. He did the same with the second and third pouch, but when he came to the fourth, Leona screamed aloud. ‘No! Less . . . That much can kill!’
He dropped a few grains into the cup, then continued with the two remaining powders. He stirred the concoction with a finger, surprised to see it turn blood-red and viscous, then carried it over to the girl. He put an arm around her shoulders and lifted the cup to her lips. Steadying it with both hands, she drank the fluid in grateful gulps. She seemed immediately to relax. He lay her back on the bunk, stroking a sweat-soaked strand of hair from her forehead.
‘You are ill,’ he whispered.
She shook her head. ‘No ... I will be fine.’ She smiled at him, a dreamy half-smile, as her eyes closed in sleep.
He remained with her for a while, watching her even breathing and working to calm himself. Through the wall of the dome he could see the fiery night sky slowly replacing the magnesium glare of daytime, the streaked scarlets and tangerines gaining in strength. He stroked Leona’s hair one last time and left the dome, the heat and humidity breaking over him in an almost palpable wave.
There was something unnatural about the scene as he stood beneath the canopy and stared out across the lake, the green circle of water beneath the two-tone sky suggesting the garish nightmare of a crazed expressionist. Connery had never felt at home on Tartarus, among its many strange peoples and even stranger places. He would breathe easier when finally he took his leave of the dying planet. His yacht was anchored in a sheltered cove on the other side of the island, and sailing time to Baudelaire was a matter of three or four weeks. He thought of Leona, the fact that she had told him she would remain here ‘to pay her respects’, as she had said, for a year or more . . .
He checked and rechecked the settings and calibrations of his equipment. All was as it should be. The lasers, grapples and hawsers were primed to activate when he keyed in the single command on the terminal beside him. All that remained was for the Vulpheous to show itself.
He heard the outer door of the dome open and watched Leona pick her way across to him. She was shy in the aftermath of their lovemaking, her eyes downcast. They sat on the shore of the lake and Connery put an arm around her shoulders.
At last he asked, ‘Do you have to stay here for a year? Couldn’t you leave in a few days?’
Her shoulders moved in a shrug beneath his forearm. ‘I must...at least a year. I wish I could leave soon, but that is impossible.’
‘Why, Leona? What are you doing here?’
She shook her head, as if she found it impossible to explain. She glanced at him, and he saw tears in her eyes. ‘And you?’ she asked. ‘When do you leave?’
He hesitated. Soon, in a year or so, the sun would blow. He would be long gone by then. The gift he would give to the Thousand Worlds could not be jeopardised by needless delay.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I was thinking of leaving soon.’
She glanced at him, then past him at his arrayed machinery. ‘Your work will be finished then?’
He nodded. ‘With luck, yes, it will.’
She looked from his equipment and out across the lake, then returned her gaze to him. ‘What are they for, Connery?’
He sighed. He had prevaricated earlier when she had asked him the same question. Now he felt compelled to tell her what he was doing, to try to explain himself.
‘A great creature lives out there in the lake,’ he told her. ‘The Vulpheous. For five years I’ve tracked it across the southern seas. It’s the last of its kind and it has returned here to die.’ He shrugged. ‘Soon, when it surfaces, I will kill it humanely and drag its carcass to the shore—’
He stopped when he felt her stiffen beneath his arm. She pulled away and stared at him. ‘Kill it? You want to kill it?’
‘Leona, I know it seems barbaric—’
He stopped. At that second, a slow series of air-bubbles broke the surface of the lake.
Connery slipped into the seat behind the laser cannon, sighting down the ‘scope at the ripples radiating from close to the marker buoy. Now that the time had come, the culminating event of five years’ hard work, his awareness of the world was reduced to the surfacing creature, the laser and himself. He stared down the ‘scope, the blood pounding in his temples, and cried out as the domed head of the Vulpheous butted ponderously through the mat of algae, emerging with the slow grace of all colossal creatures. Connery reached out to the terminal keyboard.
He heard a scream, and saw a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. Leona dived at the laser cannon as his finger struck the command key. The piercing blue needle shot high and wide of its target as the cannon toppled with the girl clinging to its barrel. Timed to activate seconds after the laser, the harpoon and grapples exploded out from beneath the canopy, missing Leona by centimetres. Connery watched as the harpoon struck the water before the Vulpheous. Then the hawser sprang into programmed action, hauling in the grapples empty but for gouts of algae and weed.
The Vulpheous, either alarmed by the unaccustomed activity or sated with air, began its leisurely descent. The bulk of its body disappeared slowly, followed by its ugly, domed head. Its tiny yellow eyes seemed to bore across the lake at Connery, at once mocking and accusing.
Leona scrambled from the tangle of machinery, righted herself and ran up the slope. She disappeared behind the dome and seconds later Connery heard her muffled sobs.
He picked up the laser, checking it for damage, and did the same with the hawser and grapples. He recalibrated the weapon and recovery equipment, the weight of aborted expectation settling over him like a depression. He told himself that nothing was lost, that he would try again when the Vulpheous next emerged, and this time succeed.
He spent an hour needlessly going over the programme, waiting until Leona’s sobs abated. When there was silence he left the canopy and walked around the dome. He found her seated on a low boulder, her face lowered to her palms. She looked up as his footsteps scattered pumice, wincing as if she thought he might strike her.
He sat down on the rock next to the girl and was silent for long minutes. At last he reached out and gripped the back of her neck, her skin hot to his touch. He pulled her towards him so that her head pressed against his chest.
In a whisper, he asked, ‘Is the Vulpheous special to your people?’
She drew a breath, hiccupped on a last sob, nodded. ‘We call it ultarrak,’ she murmured. ‘It is as you say – special.’
Connery nodded, silently massaging her neck. ‘I want to tell you something,’ he said, almost in a whisper. ‘I don’t know if you’ll understand, but I’ll tell you anyway.’
He was silent for a while, marshalling his thoughts, going over the events of the past and sorting them into some kind of consecutive order.
‘Twelve years ago my wife was told that she was suffering from an illness known as Hartmann’s disease. It was very rare and very deadly. Only a hundred or so cases had been diagnosed since records were kept on all the planets of the Thousand Worlds, and most of the sufferers had succumbed to the disease. It was a viral infection that invaded the lymphatic system, causing paralysis and death within six months. My wife’s specialist held out no hope. I took her home and hired a nurse to help me look after her. I resigned from my job as a physicist with the TWC and spent all my time investigating the disease. The last ten victims, spread far and wide across the Worlds, had all died within the allotted six months, but I discovered that two sufferers had survived. However, these people had lived fifty years ago - their medical records were scant and both men were no longer alive. You can’t imagine, though, how the knowledge that Hartmann’s could be beaten filled me with a hope that in retrospect seemed futile, but at the time kept me alive ... I spent a fortune travelling around the Worlds, interviewing people, talking to doctors and scientists, quacks and charlatans ... I got nowhere. Back on Earth, my wife was slowly deteriorating. I reached the point where I recognised that I had to give up, return to Madelaine and nurse her through her last months.’
He paused, suddenly pitched into the present with the tribal girl in the crater of an extinct volcano, on a dying world a long, long way from Earth. Leona was silent but for an occasional sniff, her cheek against his chest.
‘After her death I left Earth and the memories and travelled to some of the Thousand Worlds I’d never seen before . . .’
He was running away, and he knew it, but it seemed the right thing to do at the time. He could not face Earth and the painful associations it provoked, and he told himself that a few years away from the place would work wonders. In time, when the thought of Madelaine’s passing no longer tore at his insides, he would return.
He was in a bar in an exotic port city on a world called Solomon’s Reach when he fell into conversation with a fellow drunk, who introduced himself and added that he was a doctor of medicine. Connery was inebriated and maudlin and it was perhaps natural that the topic of conversation should turn to his late wife and the disease that had taken her life. The information that Madelaine had succumbed to Hartmann’s had an odd effect on the doctor. He hiccupped and straightened on his bar-stool, with that comical attempt at sobriety that sometimes affects those drunks who wish to make a point.
The doctor told Connery that he had heard of Hartmann’s disease. Not only that, but had actually studied the virus at medical school, paying particular attention to the case histories of the two victims who had survived the disease.
‘They were saved by ... by some substance derived from the liver of a beast that lived on the world of Tartarus, a backwoods planet along the arm.’
Connery could never recall his precise reaction to this news, but he suspected that it might have been lachrymose.
‘But . . . but if there’s a cure,’ he began, thinking of all the other Madelaines out there.
The doctor held up a tipsy forefinger. ‘That was fifty years ago,’ he went on, ‘The creature is reported to be extinct. I’m sorry.’
Connery sobered up and left Solomon’s Reach and investigated how many people across the Thousand Worlds were currently suffering from Hartmann’s disease. The answer was a dozen, eight women and four men. He discovered that the sun of Tartarus was due to blow in just seven years, but booked passage anyway.
‘I arrived and made enquiries, followed leads and red herrings and finally found people who had actually seen the last remaining Vulpheous.’ He paused, then went on, ‘So for the sakes of the people now suffering from Hartmann’s disease, I must return to Earth with the liver of the Vulpheous. From it, we might be able to synthesise a drug to combat the disease. It’s the least I can do. It’s too late to save Madelaine . . . but at least I can stop the suffering of others like her.’
They remained sitting on the rock for an hour or more, holding each other like the survivors of a shipwreck. At last Leona pulled away, squeezing his fingers, and walked slowly down to the lake. Connery watched her, his heart heavy, as she sat cross-legged and bowed her head.
As the night came to an end and the horizon brightened with the blinding white dazzle of the new day, Connery returned to the dome. He opaqued the wall, lay on his bed and traced the wound that ran from his chest to his belly. He heard the inner door open, and Leona as she moved through the dome to his room. He saw her back-pack on the floor, and beside it her pouches of powders, and he assumed she was returning for these, before leaving.
She paused briefly in the entrance, staring through the half-light at him, then crossed the chamber and lay beside him on the bed. Connery took her in his arms in silence, afraid that a word from him might break their uneasy truce.
* * * *
Leona took to spending the hours of sunset on the slab of rock overlooking the lake where she had originally pitched her tent, cross-legged and head bowed, but not repeating the mantra of the Summoning. Connery tended his machinery every day, and every morning swam out to check the position of ultarrak. She was afraid that if she summoned the healer, and it came, then he might kill it with his weapon of light.
Today she bowed her head and wept at her dilemma.
She loved Connery. They were One, after all. She had sealed their bond with the joining of the wounds, and since then life with him was better than anything she had ever experienced. They made love at every sleep period, and as night fell and her fever took command, Connery mixed the powders and held her as she drank and felt relief. But there was a distance between them, a divide that separated them as well as any sea. She understood why Connery wanted to kill ultarrak, to save the victims of a disease among the stars, because he had been unable to save his wife. But he did not understand why she could not allow him to kill ultarrak, why the creature was important to her - and that was her fault. She had to tell him ... He had asked, questioned her is to what she was doing here, why she had to remain for months, but Leona had been unable to tell him the truth: would he still want her, if he knew?
But she had to tell him. There was no other way. He could spurn her if he so wished, and she would learn of the man he really was, or he could accede to her needs and agree not to kill ultarrak.
In a burst of resolve she jumped up from the rock and set off around the lake to where Connery was working among his awkward, angular devices. By the time she reached the canopy, though, her resolve had almost dissipated. She stood in the shadow, hugging her shoulders, as he knelt with his broad back to her, oblivious of her presence. At last she cleared her throat, and he turned and smiled at her.
He made to return to his work, but Leona said, ‘We must talk.’
He laid down a metal tool, wiped his hands on his shorts and nodded. They sat facing each other beneath the canopy, his gaze making her blush.
Unable to look him in the eye, she said, ‘You must not kill ultarrak.’
‘Leona?’ He reached out and took her chin in his hand, lifted her head so that she had to look at him. ‘What are you doing here? What does the Vulpheous mean to you?’
She pulled back her head, freed herself of his fingers, but held his gaze. ‘Do you love me, Connery?’
‘I . . . you know I do.’ He looked steadily at her, and she could discern no hint of a lie in his expression.
‘Then if you love me, you cannot kill ultarrak.’
‘Leona . . . ?’
‘If ultarrak dies, I die—’
‘You’re not making sense. What do you mean?’ His face was full of anger and confusion, but fear also.
She stared at her fingers, busy with the hem of her dress, and tried to think of the words to tell this off-worlder, this man she loved, so that he would not think any less of her.
‘Many years ago,’ she said, raising her eyes, ‘there was not one ultarrak, but hundreds. They lived among the islands of the south seas. Each tribe kept an ultarrak, except they did not keep one, exactly, but rather it was there when it was needed. It came when summoned, and it healed.’
At this, Connery’s eyes widened. ‘Healed?’
‘When people were so sick that normal herbs and prayers could not heal them, when they were possessed by death-demons, the ultarrak was summoned and the sick person would be taken.’
He was shaking his head. She went on, ‘The sick person enters the ultarrak through its vathar - ‘ She indicated the top of her head, ’—where it blows water. There is a chamber in there and the sick person sleeps for a year and is healed by the ultarrak. I have never met anyone healed this way, but my mother, and her mother, knew people who were.’
‘You enter its blow-hole?’ he said, staring at her. ‘And you stay in there for a year? But what about food, air . . . ?’
‘My mother said that you sleep so deeply that you do not breathe, and ultarrak shares its blood with you through tentacles that heal. And after a year or more, you return to the tribe in full health.’
Connery said a word she did understand in his own language, then reached out and took her hand. ‘And you are sick?’ he asked her, ‘and need the ultarrak to heal you?’
She nodded and lowered her eyes. ‘I am possessed by a powerful spirit in here.’ She touched her temple.
‘But your powders—’ he began.
‘They will work only for so long . . . Soon I will die, if I cannot summon ultarrak. My people could do nothing to save me. They even took me to the off-worlders who were arranging our evacuation, but they too could do nothing, only ultarrak can save me, Connery, and it cannot save me if you kill it.’
His reaction was surprising. He stood and pulled her to her feet, and with his arms around her shoulders hurried her up the slope towards the dome. Once inside he sat her on the bed and rushed about the room in search of something. He found it - a flat board from which hung lengths of material like leather thongs. He knelt before her, fumbling in his haste, and tied the thongs around her right arm. She started and gasped - it was as if a thousand ants were nibbling her skin, but he told her not to worry.
He poked the board with his fingers, and strange shapes glowed on its surface. He peered at these with fevered eyes, muttering to himself in his own language. She wanted to tell him not to worry, that ultarrak would heal her - that if the other off-worlders could not save her, then neither could he.
Then suddenly his activity ceased. Slowly, he unwound the stinging thongs from her arm, leaving stripes of blood on her brown skin. When he looked at her, she saw tears in his eyes.
She stroked his hair. ‘Connery, do not worry what your board says. Ultarrak will take me and make me well.’
He lay with her on the bed, stroking her hair and saying her name, and then many other words she could not understand. She could tell by the tone of his voice that he was trying not to cry. How like a man!
For the first time in days, Leona felt at peace. Connery loved her, and would not kill ultarrak, and in time she would be healed.
* * * *
He could not let Leona see his consternation. He kissed her and left her on the bed, then hurried from the dome and stormed down the slope to the water’s edge. He wanted to scream, to yell to the non-existent gods that it was so unfair. Madelaine had been taken from him, and now Leona . . . He cursed and tried not to weep, but the effort made his throat burn with contained emotion, and eventually he sat down by the lake and wept.
The diagnosis was that Leona was dying from a neurological disorder known by a dozen different names throughout the Thousand Worlds. There was no cure. Victims rarely lasted for more than three months. The diagnosis gave Leona no more than a few weeks. He cast his mind back to Madelaine’s death, and wondered how he had managed to overcome so numbing a tragedy, and how he might triumph over this one.
What compounded his pain was Leona’s own reaction - her childish faith in an ancient folk tale. She really believed that she could be cured by the Vulpheous. But how might such a cure be possible? How might she survive for a year within the blow-hole of the creature? It was, surely, no more than primitive superstition . . . And yet, he said to himself, what if her naive faith proved justified, and the Vulpheous could indeed effect her recovery?
Connery sat beside the lake for what seemed like hours, going over his options. He told himself again and again that it could not be true, that someone as vital and alive as Leona could not be dying ... He stared into the sky, at the clouds corrupted by the supernova. In time the sun would blow, destroying everything: the planet, the island, the Vulpheous . . . Could he risk not getting the cure out to the Thousand Worlds, for the hopeless belief in a primitive folk tale?
At last he left the lake and retraced his steps back to the dome. Leona was still on the bed, and she turned and smiled it him as he entered the chamber. He sat down beside her and stroked the hair from her forehead. He stared at her in silence, touching the line of her jaw. Her brown eyes watched him, so bright and alive.
Later, her convulsions began. As she lay on the bed with her eyes closed, shivering, Connery mixed the powders into the blood-red syrup that would make her still. He sat with her in his arms and raised the cup to her lips, and he rejoiced in her relief as her body relaxed and her breathing became even. He lowered her head to the pillow, kissed her on the lips, and then left the dome.
He stood beneath the fiery sky and stared out across the jade green lake, asking himself over and over if he had made the right decision.
* * * *
Connery was standing beneath the canopy when the Vulpheous made its next appearance. The sun had set on another searing day, and the sombre tone of the night sky turned the surface of the lake a dark, brooding shade of emerald.
He was barely aware of the first lethargic ripple that disturbed the surface of the lake, so lost was he in his thoughts. Then a series of slow bubbles exploded through the layer of algae.
The Vulpheous rose to the surface with a slow, wallowing buoyancy. Its massive head turned slowly towards Connery, its tiny eyes seeking him out. It remained staring at him for what seemed like a long time.
Connery slipped into the seat behind the cannon, reached out and struck the command. The laser flashed out, striking the creature through the forehead, and the natural amphitheatre rang to the piercing shriek of the dying animal. Already the harpoons and grapple had found their fleshy target and were hauling the dead Vulpheous across the lake to the shore. It beached with a lifeless shudder, its inert mass of blubber already discharging reeking fluids across the volcanic rock.
Connery set to work, lasering the carcass into sections and slicing free its massive liver. He transferred the organ to his waiting carricase, then made his way back to the dome. He showered to rid himself of its blood and stench, and was leaving the dome for the last time when he paused. On the floor was Leona’s pack, and beside it her pouches of medicine powders, among them the pouch that had contained the white powder, the fehna, empty now.
He left the dome with the carricase. Soon, he told himself, thanks to what he had achieved here in the volcano, many people around the Thousand Worlds would give thanks to him, would be able to look into the future with hope renewed.
For every advance there was a sacrifice.
On his way up the slope he paused by the cairn of stones beneath which Leona lay.
Before he began the long trek from the volcano to the cove where his yacht was anchored, Connery knelt beside the cairn, closed his eyes and asked for her forgiveness.
* * * *
|
H |
unter opened his eyes and dimly registered a crystal dome above him. Beyond, he made out a thousand rainbows vaulting through the sky like the ribs of a cathedral ceiling. Below the rainbows, as if supporting them, mile-high trees rose, dwellings of various design lodged within their branches. Large insects, on closer inspection Hunter recognised them as Vespula Vulgaris Denebian, shuttled back and forth between the trees. He guessed he was on Deneb XVII, The-World-of-a-Million-Wonders.
He was on Million? He was alive? It was a miracle. Or was this a dream? Was he dying, was this some cruel jest played by his embattled consciousness as he slipped into oblivion? Would this vision soon cease, to be replaced by total nothingness? The concept frightened him, even though he told himself that he had nothing to fear: dead, he would not have the awareness with which to apprehend the terrible fact of his extinction.
Now, however, he had. He tried to scream.
He could not open his mouth. Nor for that matter, he realised, could he move any other part of his body. Come to that, he could feel nothing. He tried to move his head, shift his gaze. He remained staring through the dome at the rainbow sky.
Following his pang of mental turmoil, he seemed to sense his surroundings with greater clarity. The prismatic parabolas overhead struck him like visual blows, and for the first time he made out sound: the strummed music of troubadours, the cool laughter of a waterfall, and muted chatter, as contented crowds promenaded far below.
Such fidelity could not be the product of a dwindling consciousness, surely? But the alternative, that he was indeed alive, was almost as hard to believe.
How could anyone have survived an attack of such ferocity?
In his mind’s eye, dimly, like a half-remembered image from a dream, he recalled the attack: claws and teeth and stingers; he had experienced pain both physical - he had been torn savagely limb from limb - and mental, as he had known he was going to die.
And beyond that instant of mental terror?
Where had the attack taken place. How long ago? Had he been alone, or ... ?
He wanted more than anything to call her name, less to verify the fact of his own existence than to seek assurance of her safety.
‘Sam!’ But the sound would not form.
He felt his grasp on reality slacken. The colours faded, the sounds ebbed. He fell away, slipped - not into oblivion, as he had feared - but into an ocean of unconsciousness inhabited by the great dim shapes of half-remembered visions, like basking cetaceans. Hunter dreamed.
At length he felt himself resurface. The rainbows again, the stringed music and babble of water. He still could not shift his vision, not that this overly troubled him. He was more occupied by trying to shuffle into some semblance of order the images revealed in his dream.
He had been on Tartarus Major, he recalled - that great, ancient, smouldering world sentenced to death by the mutinous primary which for millennia had granted the planet its very life. He had been commissioned to catalogue and holopix Tartarean fauna, much of which had never been registered by the Galactic Zoological Centre, Paris, Earth - in the hope that some of the unique examples of the planet’s wildlife might be saved from extinction, removed off-world, before the supernova blew.
He had been with Sam, his wife, his life and joy - Sam, carrying his child. He recalled her warning scream, and he had turned, too late to lift his laser. A charging nightmare: teeth and claws, and pain . . . Oh, the pain!
And, above everything, Sam’s screams.
And his fear, as he died, for her safety.
Now he wanted to sob, but he had not the physical wherewithal to do so; he felt as though his soul were sobbing for what might have become of Sam.
Unconsciousness claimed him, mercifully.
When next he awoke, what seemed like aeons later, the trapezoid lozenges of sky between the cross-hatched rainbows were cerise with sunset, and marked with early stars. The achingly beautiful notes of a musical instrument, perhaps a clariphone, floated up from the thoroughfares below.
He tried to shift his gaze, move his head, but it was impossible. He had absolutely no sensation in any part of his body.
A cold dread surged through his mind like liquid nitrogen.
He had no body - that was the answer. He was but a brain, a pair of eyes. Only that much of him had survived the attack. He was the guinea pig of some diabolical experiment, his eyes fixed forever on the heavens, the stars he would never again visit.
Hunter. He was Hunter. For as long as he recalled, he had gone by that simple appellation. He had roved the stars, hunting down the more bizarre examples of galactic fauna, amassing a vast holo-library, as well as extensive case-notes, that were regarded as invaluable by the legion of zoologists and biologists from Earth to Zigma-Zeta. He was a scholar, an intrepid adventurer nonpareil. He had often gone where lesser men feared to go, like Tartarus ... He wondered how his death had been taken by the galaxy at large, how his friends had mourned, jealous colleagues smiled that at last his need to prove himself had instead proved to be his undoing.
Tartarus, a double danger: to go among beasts unknown, on a world in imminent danger of stellar annihilation. He should have swallowed his pride and left well alone. Instead, he had dragged Sam along with him.
He recalled, with a keening melancholy deep within him like a dying scream, that Sam had tried to talk him out of the trip. He recalled his stubbornness. ‘I can’t be seen to back out now, Samantha.’
He recalled her insistence that, if he did make the journey, then she would accompany him. He recalled his smug, self-righteous satisfaction at her decision.
As unconsciousness took him once again, he was aware of a stabbing pain within his heart.
* * * *
Someone was watching him, peering down at where he was imprisoned. He had no idea how long he had been staring up at the lattice of rainbows, mulling over his memories and regrets, before he noticed the blue, piercing eyes, the odd bald head at the periphery of his vision.
The man obligingly centred himself in Hunter’s line of sight.
He stared at his tormentor, tried to order his outrage. He boiled with anger. Do you know who I am? he wanted to ask the man. I am Hunter, famed and feted the galaxy over! How dare you do this to me!
Hands braced on knees, the man looked down on him. Something about his foppish appearance sent a shiver of revulsion through Hunter. His captor wore the white cavaner boots of a nobleman, ballooning pantaloons, and a sleeveless overcoat of some snow-white fur. His face was thin, bloodless - almost as pale as his vestments.
He reminded Hunter of an albino wasp: the concave chest, the slim waist, the soft abdomen swelling obscenely beneath it.
Without taking his gaze off Hunter, the man addressed whispered words to someone out of sight. Hunter made out a muttered reply. The man nodded.
‘My name is Alvarez,’ he said. ‘Do not be alarmed. You are in no danger. We are looking after you.’
Oddly, far from reassuring him, the words put an end to the notion that he might still be dreaming, and convinced him of the reality of this situation.
He tried to speak but could not.
Alvarez was addressing his companion again, who had moved into Hunter’s view: a fat man garbed in robes of gold and crimson.
Alvarez disappeared, returned seconds later with a rectangular, opaqued screen on castors. He positioned it before Hunter, so that it eclipsed his view of the sky. Hunter judged, from the position of the screen and his captors, that he was lying on the floor, Alvarez and the fat man standing on a platform above him.
He stared at the screen as Alvarez flicked a switch on its side.
A work of art? A macabre hologram that might have had some significance to the jaded citizens of The-World-of-a-Million-Wonders, who had seen everything before?
The ‘gram showed the figure of a man, suspended - but the figure of a man as Hunter had never before witnessed. It was as if the unfortunate subject of the artwork had been flayed alive, skinned to reveal purple and puce slabs of muscle shot through with filaments of tendons, veins and arteries - like some medical student’s computer graphic which built up, layer on layer, from skeleton to fully-fleshed human being.
At first, Hunter thought that the figure was a mere representation, a still hologram - then he saw a movement behind the figure, a bubble rising through the fluid in which it was suspended. And, then, he made out the slight ticking pulse at its throat.
He could not comprehend why they were showing him this monster.
Alvarez leaned forward. ‘You have no reason to worry,’ he said. ‘You are progressing well, Mr Hunter, considering the condition you were in when you arrived.’
Realisation crashed through Hunter. He stared again at the reflection of himself, at the monstrosity he had become.
Alvarez opaqued the screen, wheeled it away. He returned and leaned forward. ‘We are delighted with your progress, Mr Hunter.’ He nodded to his fat companion. ‘Dr Fischer.’
The doctor touched some control in his hand and Hunter slipped into blessed oblivion.
* * * *
When he came to his senses it took him some minutes before he realised that his circumstances were radically altered. The view through the dome was substantially the same - rainbows, towering trees - but shifted slightly, moved a few degrees to the right.
He watched a vast, majestic star-galleon edge slowly past the dome, its dozen angled, multicoloured sails bellying in the breeze. He monitored its royal progress through the evening sky until it was lost to sight - and then he realised that he had, in order to track its passage, moved his head.
For the first time he became aware of his immediate surroundings.
He was in a small, comfortable room formed from a slice of the dome: two walls hung with tapestries, the third the outer wall of diamond facets.
With trepidation, he raised his head and peered down the length of his body. He was naked, but not as naked as he had been on the last occasion when he had seen himself. This time he was covered with skin - tanned, healthy looking skin over well-developed muscles. He remembered the attack in the southern jungle of Tartarus, relived the terrible awareness of being riven limb from limb.
And now he was whole again.
He was in a rejuvenation pod, its canoe-shaped length supporting a web of finely woven fibres which cradled him with the lightest of touches. It was as if he were floating on air. Leads and electrodes covered him, snaking over the side of the pod and disappearing into monitors underneath.
He tried to sit up, but it was all he could do to raise his arm. The slightest exertion filled him with exhaustion. But what did he expect, having newly risen from the dead?
He experienced then a strange ambivalence of emotion. Of course he was grateful to be alive - the fear of oblivion he had experienced upon first awakening was still fresh enough in his memory to fill him with an odd, retrospective dread, and a profound gratitude for his new lease of life. But something, some nagging insistence at the back of his mind, hectored him with the improbability of his being resurrected.
Very well - he was famous, was respected in his field, but even he had to admit that his death would have been no great loss to the galaxy at large. So why had Alvarez, or the people for whom Alvarez worked, seen fit to outlay millions on bringing him back to life? For certain, Sam could not have raised the funds to finance the procedure, even if she had realised their joint assets. He was rich, but not that rich. Why, the very sailship journey from the rim world of Tartarus to the Core planet of Million would have bankrupted him.
He was alive, but why he was alive worried him.
He felt himself drifting as a sedative sluiced through his system.
* * * *
Hunter opened his eyes.
He was in a room much larger than the first, a full quadrant of the dome this time. He was no longer attached to the rejuvenation pod, but lying in a bed. Apart from a slight ache in his chest, a tightness, he felt well. Tentatively, he sat up, swung his legs from the bed. He wore a short white gown like a kimono. He examined his legs, his arms. They seemed to be as he remembered them, but curiously younger, without the marks of age, the discolorations and small scars he’d picked up during a lifetime of tracking fauna through every imaginable landscape. He filled his chest with a deep breath, exhaled. He felt good.
He stood and crossed to the wall of the dome, climbed the three steps and paused on the raised gallery. A magnificent star-galleon sailed by outside, so close that Hunter could make out figures on the deck, a curious assortment of humans and aliens. A few stopped work to look at him. One young girl even waved. Hunter raised his arm in salute and watched the ship sail away, conscious of the gesture, the blood pumping through his veins. In that instant, he was suddenly aware of the possibilities, of the wondrous gift of life renewed.
‘Mr Hunter,’ the voice called from behind him. ‘I’m so pleased to see you up and about.’
Alvarez stood on the threshold, smiling across the room at him. He seemed smaller than before, somehow reduced.
Within the swaddles of his fine clothing - rich gold robes, frilled shirts - he was even more insect-like than Hunter recalled.
‘I have so many questions I don’t really know where to begin,’ Hunter said.
Alvarez waved, the cuff of his gown hanging a good half-metre from his stick-like wrist. ‘All in good time, my dear Mr Hunter. Perhaps you would care for a drink?’ He moved to a table beneath the curve of the dome, its surface marked with a press-select panel of beverages.
‘A fruit juice.’
‘I’ll join you,’ Alvarez said, and seconds later passed Hunter a tall glass of yellow liquid.
His thoughts returned to the jungle of Tartarus. ‘My wife . . . ?’ he began.
Alvarez was quick to reassure him. ‘Samantha is fit and well. No need to worry yourself on that score.’
‘I’d like to see her.’
‘That is being arranged. Within the next three or four days, you should be reunited.’
Hunter nodded, reluctant to show Alvarez his relief or gratitude. His wife was well, he was blessed with a new body, renewed life ... so why did he experience a pang of apprehension like a shadow cast across his soul?
‘Mr Hunter,’ Alvarez asked, ‘what are your last recollections before awakening here?’
Hunter looked from Alvarez to the tall trees receding into the distance. ‘Tartarus,’ he said. ‘The jungle.’
‘Can you recall the . . . the actual attack?’
‘I remember, but vaguely. I can’t recall what led up to it, just the attack itself. It’s as if it happened years ago.’
Alvarez was staring at him. ‘It did, Mr Hunter. Three years ago, to be precise.’
Again, Hunter did not allow his reaction to show: shock, this time. Three years! But Sam had been carrying their child, his daughter. He had missed her birth, the first years of her life . . .
‘You owe your survival to your wife,’ Alvarez continued. ‘She fired flares to frighten the beast that killed you, then gathered your remains.’ He made an expression of distaste. ‘There was not much left. Your head, torso . . . She stored them in the freeze-unit at your camp, then returned through the jungle to Apollinaire, and from there to the port at Baudelaire, where she arranged passage off-planet.’
Hunter closed his eyes. He imagined Sam’s terror, her despair, her frantic hope. It should have been enough to drive her mad.
Alvarez went on, ‘She applied for aid to a number of resurrection foundations. My company examined you. They reported your case to me. I decided to sanction your rebirth.’
Hunter was shaking his head. ‘But how did Sam raise the fare to Million?’ he asked. ‘And the cost of the resurrection itself? There’s just no way . . .’ What, he wondered, had she done to finance his recovery?
‘She had to arrange a loan to get the both of you here. She arrived virtually penniless.’
‘Then how—?’
Alvarez raised a hand. There was something about the man that Hunter did not like: his swift, imperious gestures, his thin face which combined the aspects of asceticism and superiority. In an age when everyone enjoyed the means to ensure perfect health, Alvarez’s affectation of ill health was macabre.
‘Your situation interested me, Mr Hunter. I knew of you. I followed your work, admired your success. I cannot claim to be a naturalist in the same league as yourself, but I dabble . . .
‘I run many novel enterprises on Million,’ Alvarez went on. ‘My very favourite, indeed the most popular and lucrative, is my Xeno-biological Exhibit Centre, here in the capital. It attracts millions of visitors every year from all across the galaxy. Perhaps you have heard of it, Mr Hunter?’
Hunter shook his head, minimally. ‘I have no interest in, nor sympathy with, zoos, Mr Alvarez.’
‘Such an outdated, crude description, I do think. My Exhibit Centre is quite unlike the zoos of old. The centre furnishes species from around the galaxy with a realistic simulacra of their native habitats, often extending for kilometres. Where the species exhibited are endangered on their own worlds, we have instituted successful breeding programmes. In more than one instance I have saved species from certain extinction.’ He paused, staring at Hunter. ‘Although usually I hire operators from the planet in question to capture and transport the animals I require to update my exhibit, on this occasion—’
Hunter laid his drink aside, untouched. ‘I am a cameraman, Mr Alvarez. I hunt animals in order to film them. I have no expertise in capturing animals.’
‘What I need is someone skilled in the tracking of a certain animal. My team will perform the actual physical capture. On the planet in question, there are no resident experts, and as you are already au fait with the terrain . . .’
Hunter interrupted. ‘Where?’ he asked.
‘Where else?’ Alvarez smiled. ‘Tartarus, of course.’
It took some seconds for his words to sink in. Hunter stared across the room at the dandified zoo-keeper. ‘Tartarus?’ He almost laughed. ‘Madness. Three years ago the scientists were forecasting the explosion of the supernova in two to three years at the latest.’
Alvarez responded evenly. ‘The scientists have revised their estimates. They now think the planet is safe for another year.’
Hunter sat down on the steps that curved around the room. He shook his head, looked up. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Alvarez. Tartarus holds too many bad memories for me. And anyway, it would be insane to go there with the supernova so imminent.’
‘I think you fail to understand the situation in which you find yourself, Mr Hunter. You and your wife are in debt to me to the tune of some five million credits. You are now, legally, in my employ—’
‘I didn’t ask to be resurrected. I signed nothing!’
Alvarez smiled. ‘Your wife signed all the relevant papers. She wanted you resurrected. She agreed to work for me.’
Hunter experienced a strange plummeting sensation deep within him. He whispered, ‘Where is she?’
‘Six months ago, when it was obvious that your resurrection would be successful, she left for Tartarus to do some field-work, investigations and preliminary tracking.’
Hunter closed his eyes. Alvarez had him.
He thought of his child. Surely Sam would not take an infant to Tartarus. ‘Who’s looking after our child while Sam is on Tartarus?’ he asked.
Alvarez shook his head apologetically. ‘I never actually met your wife. Our negotiations were conducted via intermediaries. I know nothing of your wife’s personal arrangements.’
Hunter stood and contemplated the view, the tall trees marching away into the mist, the canopy of rainbows and the star-galleons. It was against everything that Hunter believed in to hunt and trap an animal for captivity. How many lucrative commissions had he turned down in the past?
But there was one obvious difference in this case. If the animal that Alvarez wanted capturing was not tracked and taken from Tartarus, then it faced annihilation come the supernova.
And there was the added incentive that soon he would be reunited with Sam.
‘I seem to have little choice but to agree to your demands.’
Alvarez smiled thinly. ‘Excellent. I knew you would see sense, eventually. We need a man of your calibre in order to track the creature I require as the prize of my collection.’
‘Which is?’ Hunter asked.
Alvarez paused for a second, as if for dramatic emphasis. ‘The Slarque,’ he said.
* * * *
Hunter mouthed the word to himself in disbelief. Millennia ago, long before humankind colonised Tartarus, a sentient alien race known as the Slarque was pre-eminent on the planet. They built cities on every continent, sailed ships across the oceans, and reached a stage of civilisation comparable to that of humanity in the sixteenth century. Then, over the period of a few hundred years, they became extinct - or so some theorists posited. Others, a crank minority, held that the Slarque still existed in some devolved form, sequestered in the mountainous jungle terrain of the southern continent. There had been reports of sightings, dubious ‘eye-witness’ accounts of brief meetings with the fearsome, bipedal creatures, but no actual concrete evidence.
‘Mr Hunter,’ Alvarez was saying, ‘do you have any idea what kind of creature was responsible for your death?’
Hunter gestured. ‘Of course not. It happened so fast. I didn’t have a chance—’ He stopped.
Alvarez crossed the room to a wall-screen. He inserted a small disc, adjusted dials. He turned to Hunter. ‘Your wife was filming at the time of your death. This is what she filmed.’
The screen flared. Hunter took half a dozen paces forward, then stopped, as if transfixed by what he saw. The picture sent memories, emotions, flooding through his mind. He stared at the jungle scene, and he could almost smell the stringent, putrescent reek peculiar to Tartarus, the stench of vegetable matter rotting in the vastly increased heat of the southern climes. He heard the cries and screams of a hundred uncatalogued birds and beasts. He experienced again the mixture of anxiety and exhilaration at being in the unexplored jungle of a planet which at any moment might be ripped apart by its exploding sun.
‘Watch closely, Mr Hunter,’ Alvarez said.
He saw himself, a small figure in the background, centre-screen. This was an establishing shot, which Sam would edit into the documentary she always made about their field-trips.
It was over in five seconds.
One instant he was gesturing at the blood-red sky through a rent in the jungle canopy - and the next something emerged through the undergrowth behind him, leapt upon his back and began tearing him apart.
Hunter peered at the grainy film, trying to make out his assailant. The attack was taking place in the undergrowth, largely obscured from the camera. All that could be seen was the rearing, curving tail of the animal - for all the world like that of a scorpion - flailing and thrashing and coming down again and again on the body of its victim . . .
The film finished there, as Sam fired flares to scare away the animal. The screen blanked.
‘We have reason to believe,’ Alvarez said, ‘that this creature was the female of the last surviving pair of Slarque on Tartarus—’
‘Ridiculous!’ Hunter cried.
‘They are devolved,’ Alvarez went on, ‘and living like wild animals.’ He paused. ‘Do you see what an opportunity this is, Mr Hunter? If we can capture, and save from certain extinction, the very last pair of a sentient alien race?’
Hunter gestured, aware that his hand was trembling. ‘This is hardly proof of its existence,’ he objected.
‘The stinger corresponds to anatomical remains which are known to be of the Slarque. Which other species on Tartarus has such a distinctive feature?’ Alvarez paused. ‘Also, your wife has been working hard on Tartarus. She has come up with some very interesting information.’
From a pocket in his robe, he pulled out what Hunter recognised as an ear-phone. ‘A couple of months ago she dispatched this report of her progress. I’ll leave it with you.’ He placed it on the table top beside the bed. ‘We embark for Tartarus in a little under three days, Mr Hunter. For now, farewell.’
When Alvarez had left the room, Hunter quickly crossed to the bed and took up the ‘phone. His heart leapt at the thought of listening to his wife’s voice. He inserted the ‘phone in his right ear, activated it.
Tears came to his eyes. Her words brought back a slew of poignant memories. He saw her before him, her calm oval face, dark hair drawn back, green eyes staring into space as she spoke into the recorder.
Hunter lay on the bed and closed his eyes.
* * * *
Apollinaire Town. Mary’s day, 33rd St Jerome’s month, 1720 - Tartarean calendar.
By Galactic Standard it’s ... I don’t know. I know I’ve been here for months, but it seems like years. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that anything exists beyond this damned planet. The sun dominates everything. During the day it fills the sky, bloated and festering. Even at night the sky is crimson with its light. It’s strange to think that everything around me, the everyday reality of Tartarus I take for granted, will be incinerated in less than a year. This fact overwhelms life here, affecting everyone. There’s a strange air of apathy and lassitude about the place, as people go about their business, marking time before the wholesale evacuation begins. The crime rate has increased; violence is commonplace. Bizarre cults have sprung up - and I mean even weirder than the official Church of the Ultimate Sacrifice.
Alvarez, I want you to pass this recording on to Hunter when he’s fit and well. I know you want a progress report, and you’ll get one. But I want to talk to my husband, if you don’t mind.
I’m staying at the Halbeck House hotel, Hunter - in the double room overlooking the canal. I’m dictating this on the balcony where we did the editing for the last film. I’m watching the sun set as I speak. It’s unpleasantly hot, but at least there’s a slight breeze starting up. In the trees beside the canal, a flock of nightgulls are gathering. You’ll be able to hear their songs a little later, when night falls. A troupe of Leverfre’s mandrills are watching me from the far balcony rail. I know you never liked the creatures, Hunter - but I find something inexpressibly melancholy in their eyes. Do you think they know their time is almost up?
(Oh, by the way, the hotel still serves the most superb lemon beer in Apollinaire. Mmm.)
Okay, Alvarez, I know - you want to hear how I’m progressing.
Three days ago I got back from a month-long trip into the interior. I’d been getting nowhere in either Apollinaire or Baudelaire. The leads I wanted to follow up all ran out - people were reluctant to talk. A couple of people I wanted to interview - the freelance film-maker who recorded something ten years ago, and the uranium prospector who claimed he’d seen a Slarque . . . well, the film-maker left Tartarus a couple of years back, and the prospector is dead. I tried to make an appointment with the Director of the Natural History museum, but he was away and wasn’t due back for a week. I left a message for him, then decided to take a trek into the interior.
Hunter, the ornithopter service no longer runs from Apollinaire. Gabriella’s sold up and left the planet, and the new owner has resited the operation in Baudelaire. It’s understandable, of course. These days there are few naturalists, geologists, or prospectors interested in the southern interior. The only visitors to the area are the members of one of the crackpot cults I mentioned, the so-called Slarquists, who come here on their way to the alien temples down the coast. I don’t know what they do there. There are rumours that they make sacrifices to the all-powerful God of the Slarque. Don’t ask me what kind of sacrifices.
Anyway, with no ornithopters flying, I hired a tracked bison and two armed guards, and set off inland.
It took four days to reach the site of our first camp, Hunter - the rock pool beneath the waterfall, remember? From there it was another two days to the foot of the plateau, to the place where you . . . where the attack happened. It was just how I remembered it - the opening in the smaller salse trees, the taller, surrounding trees providing a high level canopy that blotted out the sun ... I left the guards in the bison and just stood on the edge of the clearing and relived the horror of what happened three years ago.
I can hear you asking why I went back there, why did I torture myself? Well, if you recall, I’d set up a few remote cameras to record some of the more timorous examples of the area’s wildlife while we went trekking. After the attack ... I’d left the cameras and equipment in my haste to get to Baudelaire. It struck me that perhaps if the Slarque - if Slarque they were - had returned, then they might be captured on film.
That night in the clearing I viewed all the considerable footage. Plenty of shots of nocturnal fauna and grazing quadrupeds, but no Slarque.
The following day I took forensic samples from the area where the attack happened - broken undergrowth, disturbed soil, etc, for Alvarez’s people to examine when they get here. Then I set up more cameras, this time fixed to relay images back to my base in Apollinaire.
I decided to make a few exploratory forays into the surrounding jungle. We had food and water for a couple of weeks, and as the guards were being paid by the hour they had no reason to complain. Every other day we made circular treks into the jungle, finishing back at the campsite in the evening. I reckon we covered a good two hundred square kilometres like this. I filmed constantly, took dung samples, samples of hair and bone . . . Needless to say, I didn’t come across the Slarque.
Just short of a month after leaving Apollinaire, we made the journey back. I felt depressed. I’d achieved nothing, not even laid the terror of that terrible day. It’s strange, but I returned to Tartarus on this mission for Alvarez with extreme reluctance - if not for the fact that I was working for him to cover the cost of your treatment, I would have been happy to leave Tartarus well alone and let the Slarque fry when the sun blew. That was then. Now, and even after just a few days on the planet, I wanted to know what had killed you, if it were a Slarque. I wanted to find out more about this strange, devolved race.
I left the interior having found out nothing, and that hurt.
When I got back to Halbeck House, there was a message for me from the Director of the Natural History Museum at Apollinaire. He’d seen and enjoyed a couple of our films and agreed to meet me.
Monsieur Dernier was in his early eighties, so learned and dignified I felt like a kid in his company. I told him about the attack, that I was eager to trace the animal responsible. It happened that he’d heard about the incident on the newscasts - he was happy to help me. Now that it came to it, I was reluctant to broach the subject of the Slarque, in case Dernier thought me a complete crank - one of the many crazy cultists abroad in Apollinaire. I edged around the issue for a time, mentioned at last that some people, on viewing the film, had commented on how the beast did bear a certain superficial resemblance to fossil remains of the Slarque. Of course, I hastened to add, I didn’t believe this myself.
He gave me a strange look, told me that he himself subscribed to the belief, unpopular though it was, that devolved descendants of the Slarque still inhabited the interior of the southern continent.
He’d paused there, then asked me if I’d ever heard of Rogers and Codey? I admitted that I hadn’t.
Dernier told me that they had been starship pilots back in the eighties. Their shuttle had suffered engine failure and come down in the central mountains, crash-landed in a remote snowbound valley and never been discovered. They were given up for dead - until a year later when Rogers staggered into Apollinaire, half-delirious and severely frostbitten. The only survivor of the crash, he’d crossed a high mountain pass and half the continent - it made big news even on Earth, thirty years ago. When he was sufficiently recovered to leave hospital, Rogers had sought out M. Dernier, a well-known advocate of the extant Slarque theory.
Lieutenant Rogers claimed to have had contact with the Slarque in their interior mountain fastness.
Apparently, Rogers had repeated, over and over, that he had seen the Slarque, and that the meeting had been terrible - and he would say no more. Rogers had needed to confess, Dernier felt, but, when he came to do so, the burden of his experience had been too harrowing to relive.
I asked Dernier if he believed Rogers’ story.
He told me that he did. Rogers hadn’t sought to publicise his claim, to gain from it. He had no reason to lie about meeting the creatures. Whatever had happened in the interior had clearly left the lieutenant in a weakened mental state.
I asked him if he knew what had become of Lt Rogers, if he was still on Tartarus.
‘Thirty years ago,’ Dernier said, ‘Lt Rogers converted, became a novice in the Church of the Ultimate Sacrifice. If he’s survived this long in the bloody organisation, then he’ll still be on Tartarus. You might try the monastery at Barabas, along the coast.’
So yesterday I took the barge on the inland waterway, then a pony and trap up to the clifftop Monastery of St Cyprian of Carthage.
I was met inside the ornate main gate by a blind monk. He listened to my explanations in silence. I said that I wished to talk to a certain Anthony Rogers, formerly Lt Rogers of the Tartarean Space Fleet. The monk told me that father Rogers would be pleased to see me. He was taking his last visitors this week. Three days ago he had undergone extensive penitent surgery, preparatory to total withdrawal.
The monk led me through ancient cloisters. I was more than a little apprehensive. I’d seen devotees of the Ultimate Sacrifice only at a distance before. You know how squeamish I am, Hunter.
The monk left me in a beautiful garden overlooking the ocean. I sat on a wooden bench and stared out across the waters. The sky was white hot, the sun huge above the horizon as it made its long fall towards evening.
The monk returned, pushing a ... a bundle in a crude wooden wheelchair. Its occupant, without arms or legs, jogged from side to side as he was trundled down the incline, prevented from falling forwards by a leather strap buckled around his midriff.
The monk positioned the carriage before me and murmured that he’d leave us to talk.
I . . . even now I find it difficult to express what I thought, or rather felt, on meeting Father Rogers in the monastery garden. His physical degradation, the voluntary amputation of his limbs, gave him the unthreatening and pathetic appearance of a swaddled infant - so perhaps the reason I felt threatened was that I could not bring myself to intellectually understand the degree of his commitment in undergoing such mutilation.
Also what troubled me was that I could still see, in his crew-cut, his deep tan and keen blue eyes, the astronaut that he had once been.
We exchanged guarded pleasantries for a time, he suspicious of my motives, myself unsure as to how to begin to broach the subject of his purported meeting with the aliens.
I recorded our conversation. I’ve edited it into this report. I’ve cut the section where Fr Rogers rambled - he’s in his nineties now and he seemed much of the time to be elsewhere. From time to time he’d stop talking altogether, stare into the distance, as if reliving the ordeal he’d survived in the mountains. In the following account I’ve included a few of my own comments and explanations.
I began by telling him that, almost three years ago, I lost my husband in what I suspect was a Slarque attack.
Fr Rogers: Slarque? Did you say Slarque?
Sam: I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure. I might be mistaken. I’ve been trying to find someone with first-hand experience of . . .
Fr Rogers: The Slarque . . . Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on their wayward souls. It’s such a long time ago, such a long time. I sometimes wonder . . . No, I know it happened. It can’t have been a dream, a nightmare. It happened. It’s the reason I’m here. If not for what happened out there in the mountains, I might never have seen the light.
Sam: What happened, Father?
Fr Rogers: Mmm? What happened? What happened? You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. You’d be like all the others, disbelievers all—
Sam: I have seen a Slarque, too.
Fr Rogers: So you say, so you say ... I haven’t told anyone for a long time. Became tired of being disbelieved, you see. They thought I’d gone mad . . . But I didn’t tell anyone what really happened. I didn’t want the authorities to go and find Codey, arrest him.
Sam: Codey, your co-pilot? But I thought he died in the crash-landing?
Fr Rogers: That’s what I told everyone. Easier that way. He wanted people to think he hadn’t survived, the sinner.
Sam: Father, can you tell me what happened?
Fr Rogers: It’s . . . how long ago? Thirty years? More? There’s little chance Codey will still be alive. Oh, he had supplies aplenty, but up here ... up here he was sick and getting worse. He made me promise that I’d keep quiet about what he did - and until now I have. But what harm can it do now, with Codey surely long dead?
(He stopped here and stared off into the distance and the gothic monastery rearing against the twilight sky. Tears appeared in his eyes. I felt sorry for him. Part of me regretted what I was putting him through, but I was intrigued by the little he’d told me so far. I had to find out what he’d experienced, all those years ago.)
Sam: Father . . . ?
Fr Rogers: Eh? Oh, the crash-landing. We came down too soon. Don’t ask me why. I can’t remember. Miracle we survived. We found ourselves in a high valley in the central mountains, shut in by snow-covered peaks all around. We were a small ship, a shuttle. The radio was wrecked and we had no other means of communication with the outside world. We didn’t reckon the Fleet would waste much time trying to find us. We had supplies enough for years, and the part of the ship not completely stove in we used as living quarters. I made a few expeditions into the surrounding hills, trying to find a way out, a navigable pass that’d get us to the sea-level jungle below the central range . . . But the going was too tough, the snow impassable.
It was on one of these abortive expeditions that I saw the first Slarque. I was coming back to the ship, wading through a waist-high snowdrift, frozen to the bone and sick with the thought that I’d never get away from this frozen hell.
The Slarque was on a spur of rock overlooking the valley. It was on all fours, though later I saw them standing upright. It was watching me. It was a long way off, and in silhouette, so I couldn’t really make out much detail. I recognised the arched tail, though, whipping around above its back.
So when I returned to the ship I told Codey what I’d seen. He just stared at me for a long time - and I assumed he thought I’d gone mad - but then he began nodding, and he said, ‘I know. They’ve been communicating with me for the past three days.’ Then it was my turn to think he’d flipped.
(His gaze slipped out of focus again. He no longer saw the monastery. He was back in the mountain valley.)
Fr Rogers: Codey was strangely calm, like a man blessed with a vision. I asked him what he meant by ‘communicating’. Looking straight through me, he just pointed to his head. ‘They put thoughts into here - not words, but thoughts: emotions, facts . . .’
I said, ‘Codey, you’ve finally gone, man. Don’t give me any of that shit!’ But Codey just went on staring through me like I wasn’t there, and he began talking, telling me about the Slarque, and there was so much of it, so many details Codey just couldn’t have known or made up, that by the end of it all I was scared, real scared, not wanting to believe a word of it, but at the same time finding myself half-believing . . .
Codey said that there were just two Slarque left. They were old, a couple of hundred years old. They had lived near the coast in their early years, but with the arrival of humans on the southern continent they’d retreated further south, into the snowfields of the central mountains. Codey told me that the Slarque had dwindled because a certain species of animal, on which they were dependent, had become extinct long ago. Codey said that the female Slarque was bearing a litter of young, that she was due to birth soon ... He told me many other things that night, as the snow fell and the wind howled outside - but either I’ve forgotten what else he said, or I never heard it at the time through fear ... I went straight out into that gale and rigged up an electric fence around the ship, and I didn’t stop work until I was sure it’d keep out the most fearsome predator.
The next day or two, I kept out of Codey’s way, like he was contaminated ... I ate in my own cabin, tried not to dwell on what he’d told me.
One night he came to my cabin, knocked on the door. He just stood there, staring at me. ‘They want one of us,’ he told me. As soon as he spoke, it was as if this was what I’d been fearing all along. I had no doubt who ‘they’ were. I think I went berserk then. I attacked Codey, beat him back out of my cabin. I was frightened. Oh, Christ was I frightened.
In the morning he came to me again, strangely subdued, remote. He said he wanted to show me something in the hold. I was wary, expecting a trick. I armed myself and followed him down the corridor of the broken-backed ship and into the hold. He crossed to a suspension unit, opened the lid and said, ‘Look.’
So I looked. We were carrying a prisoner, a criminal suspended for the trip between Tartarus and Earth, where he was due to go on trial for the assassination of a Tartarean government official. I hadn’t known what we were carrying - I hadn’t bothered to check the manifest before take-off. But Codey had.
He said, ‘He’d only be executed on Earth.’
‘No,’ I said.
Codey stared at me. ‘It’s either him or you, Rogers.’ He had his laser out and aimed at my head. I lifted my own pistol, saw that the charge was empty. Codey just smiled.
I said, ‘But . . . but when they’ve done with him - how long will he keep them satisfied? How long before they want one of us?’
Codey shook his head. ‘Not for a long while, believe me.’
I ranted and raved at him, cried and swore, but the terrible inevitability of his logic wore me down - it was either the prisoner or me. And so at last I helped him drag the suspension unit from the ship, through the snow to the far end of the valley, where we left it with the lid open for the Slarque ... I - I have never forgiven myself to this day. I wish now that I’d had the strength to sacrifice myself.
(He broke down then, bowed his head and wept. I soothed him as best I could, murmured platitudes, my hand on the stump of his shoulder.)
Fr Rogers: That night I watched two shadowy ghosts appear at the end of the valley, haul the prisoner from the unit and drag him off through the snow. At first light next morning I kitted up, took my share of provisions and told Codey I was going to find a way out, that I’d rather die trying than remain here with him. I reckoned that with the Slarque busy with the prisoner, I had a slim chance of getting away from the valley. After that . . . who could tell?
Codey didn’t say a word. I tried to persuade him to come with me, but he kept shaking his head and saying that I didn’t understand, that they needed him ... So I left him and trekked north, fearful of the aliens, the snow, the cold. All I recall is getting clear of the valley and the Slarque, and the tremendous feeling of relief when I did. I don’t remember much else. The terror of what I was leaving was worse than the thought of dying alone in the mountains. They tell me it’s one and a half thousand kilometres from the central range to the coast. I don’t know. I just walked and kept on walking.
(He was silent for a long, long time after that. At last he spoke, almost to himself.)
Fr Rogers: Poor Codey. Poor, poor Codey . . .
Sam: And . . . then you joined the Church?
Fr Rogers: Almost as soon as I got back. It seemed . . . the only thing to do. I had to make amends, to thank God for my survival and at the same time to make reparations for the fact that I did survive.
We sat for a time in silence, Father Rogers contemplating the past while I considered the future. I knew what I was going to do. I unfolded the map of the southern continent I had brought with me and spread it across the arms of the invalid carriage. I asked him where the shuttle had come down. He stared at the map for a long time, frowning, and finally quoted an approximate grid reference coordinate. I marked the valley with a cross.
I sat and talked with Father Rogers for a while, and then left him sitting in the garden overlooking the sea, and made my way back to Apollinaire.
That was yesterday. Today I’ve been preparing for the expedition. Unfortunately I’ve found no one willing to act as my bodyguard this time - because of the duration of the planned trip and the sun’s lack of stability. I set off tomorrow in a tracked bison, with plenty of food, water and arms. I’ve calculated that it’ll take me a couple of months to cover the one and a half thousand kays to the valley where the ship crash-landed. Fortunately, with the rise of the global temperature, the snow on the high ground of the central mountains has melted, so that leg of the journey should be relatively easy. With luck, the sun should hold steady for a while yet, though it does seem to be getting hotter every day. The latest forecast I’ve heard is that we’re safe for another six to nine months . . .
I don’t know what I’ll find when I get to the valley. Certainly not Codey. As Father Rogers said, after thirty years he should be long dead. Maybe I’ll hit lucky and find the Slarque? I’ll leave transmitter beacons along my route, so you can follow me when you get here, whenever that might be.
Okay, Alvarez, that’s about it. If you don’t mind, I’d like the next bit to remain private, between Hunter and me, okay?
Hunter, the thought that sooner or later we’ll be together again has kept me going. Don’t worry about me, I have everything under control. Freya is with me; I’m taking her into the interior tomorrow. And before you protest - don’t! She’s perfectly safe. Hunter, I can’t wait until we’re reunited, until we can watch our daughter grow, share her discoveries ... I love you, Hunter. Take care.
* * * *
Hunter sat on the balcony of Halbeck House, where weeks before Sam had made the recording. He had tried to contact her by radio upon his arrival, but of course the activity of the solar flares made such communication impossible.
He sipped an iced lemon beer and stared out across what had once been a pretty provincial town. Now the increased temperature of the past few months had taken its toll. The trees lining the canal were scorched and dying, and the water in the canal itself had evaporated, leaving a bed of evil-smelling mud. Even the three-storey timber buildings of the town seemed weary, dried out and warped by the incessant heat. Although the sun had set one hour ago, pulling in its wake a gaudy, pyrotechnical display of flaring lights above the crowded rooftops, the twilight song of the nightgulls was not to be heard. Nor was there any sign of Leverfre’s mandrills, usually to be seen swinging crazily through the wrought-ironwork of the balcony. An eerie silence hung in the air, a funereal calm presaging the planet’s inevitable demise.
Hunter, Alvarez and his entourage had arrived on Tartarus by the very last scheduled sailship; they would entrust their departure to one of the illegal pirate lines still ferrying adventurers, thrill-seekers, or just plain fools, to and from the planet.
They had arrived in Apollinaire that morning, to find the town deserted but for a handful of citizens determined to leave their flight to the very last weeks.
Three days ago, the sun had sent out a searing pulse of flame, a great flaring tongue, as if in derision of the citizens who remained. The people of Baudelaire and Apollinaire had panicked. There had been riots, much looting and burning - and another great exodus off-world. The regular shipping lines had been inundated by frantic souls desperate to flee, and the surplus had been taken by the opportunistic pirate ships that had just happened to be orbiting like flies around a corpse.
Technically, Halbeck House was no longer open for business, but its proprietor had greeted Hunter like a long-lost brother and insisted that he, Alvarez and the rest of the team make themselves at home. Then he had taken the last boat to Baudelaire, leaving a supply of iced beer and a table set for the evening meal.
Hunter drank his beer and considered Father Rogers’ story, which he had listened to again and again on the voyage to Tartarus. Although the old astronaut’s words had about them a kind of insane veracity which suggested he believed his own story, even if no one else did, it was stretching the limits of credulity to believe that not only did a last pair of Slarque still exist in the central mountains, but that they had been in mental contact with Codey. And the beast that had attacked and killed Hunter? Sam’s footage of the incident was not conclusive proof that the Slarque existed, despite Alvarez’s assumptions otherwise.
The more he thought about it, the more he came to the conclusion that the trip into the interior would prove fruitless. He looked forward to the time when he would be reunited with Sam, and meet his daughter Freya for the very first time.
He had expected Sam to have left some message for him at the hotel - maybe even a pix of Freya. But nothing had awaited him, and when he asked the proprietor about his daughter, the man had looked puzzled. ‘But your wife had no little girl with her, Monsieur Hunter.’
Dinner that evening was taken on the patio beside the empty canal. The meal was a subdued affair, stifled by the oppressing humidity and the collective realisation of the enormity of the mission they were about to embark upon. Hunter ate sparingly and said little, speaking only to answer questions concerning the planet’s natural history. The chest pains which had bothered him on Million had increased in severity over the past few days; that afternoon he had lain on his bed, racked with what he thought was a heart attack. Now he felt the familiar tightness in his chest. He was reassured that Dr Fischer was on hand.
The rest of their party, other than himself, Alvarez and the Doctor, consisted of a team of four drivers-cum-guards, men from Million in the employ of the Alvarez Foundation. They tended to keep to themselves, indeed were congregated at the far end of the table now, leaving the others to talk together.
Alvarez was saying: ‘I made a trip out to the St Cyprian monastery this afternoon, to see if I could get anything more from Rogers.’
Hunter looked up from his plate of cold meat and salad. ‘And?’ He winced as a stabbing pain lanced through his lungs.
The entrepreneur was leaning back in his chair, turning a glass of wine in his fingers. He was dressed in a light-weight white suit of extravagantly flamboyant design. ‘I found Rogers, and a number of the other monks.’
Dr Fischer asked, ‘Did you learn anything more?’
Alvarez shook his head. ‘A couple of the monks were dead. Rogers was still alive, but only just. They were strapped to great wooden stakes on the clifftop greensward, naked, reduced to torsos. Many had had their eyes and facial features removed. They were chanting. I must admit that in a perverse kind of way, there was something almost beautiful in the tableau.’
‘As an atheist,’ Hunter said, ‘I could not look upon such depredation with sufficient objectivity to appreciate any beauty. As far as I’m concerned, their cult is a sick tragedy.’
‘They could be helped,’ Dr Fischer said tentatively.
Hunter grunted a laugh. ‘I somehow doubt that your ministrations would meet with their approval.’
The three men drank on in silence. At length, talk turned to the expedition.
Alvarez indicated the huge tracked bison he had transported from Million. The vehicle sat in the drive beside the hotel, loaded with provisions — food, water, weapons and, Hunter noticed, a collapsible cage lashed to the side.
‘All is ready,’ Alvarez said. ‘We set off at dawn. Your wife’s radio beacons are transmitting, and all we have to do is follow them. Our progress should be considerably quicker than hers. We’ll be following the route she has carved through the jungle, and as we have four drivers working in shifts we’ll be able to journey throughout the night. I estimate that, if all goes well, we should arrive at the valley of the crash-landing within two weeks. Then you take over, Mr Hunter, and with luck on our side we should bring about the salvation of the Slarque.’
Hunter restrained himself from commenting. The pain in his chest was mounting. He told himself that he should not worry - Dr Fischer had brought him back to life once; he could no doubt do so again, should it be necessary - but something instinctive deep within him brought Hunter out in hot and cold sweats of fear.
Alvarez leaned forward. ‘Hunter? Are you—?’
Hunter clasped his chest. Pain filled his lungs, constricting his breathing. Dr Fischer, with surprising agility for a man his size, rounded the table and bent over Hunter. He slipped an injector from a wallet and sank it into Hunter’s neck. The cool spread of the drug down through his chest brought instant relief. He regained his breath little by little as the pain ebbed.
Dr Fischer said, ‘You’ve undergone a rapid resurrection programme, Mr Hunter. Some minor problems are to be expected. At the first sign of the slightest pain, please consult me.’ The Doctor exchanged a quick glance with Alvarez, who nodded.
Hunter excused himself and retired to his room.
He lay on his bed for a long time, unable to sleep. The night sky flared with bright pulses of orange and magenta light, sending shadows flagging across the walls of the room. He thought of Sam, and the daughter he had yet to meet, somewhere out there in the interior. He cursed the day he had first heard of Tartarus Major, regretted the three years it had robbed from his life, that long away from his daughter. He slept fitfully that night, troubled by dreams in which Sam was running from the teeth and claws of the creature that had killed him.
He was woken at dawn, after what seemed like the briefest of sleeps, by the ugly klaxon of the tracked bison. The vehicle was equipped to sleep eight - in small compartments little wider than the individual bunks they contained. It was invitation enough for Hunter. He spent the first six hours of the journey catching up on the sleep he’d lost during the night. He was eventually awoken by the bucketing yaw of the bison as it made the transition from the relatively smooth surface of a road to rough terrain.
Hunter washed the sweat from his face in the basin above his bunk, then staggered through the sliding door. A narrow corridor ran the length of the vehicle to the control cabin, where a driver wrestled with the wheel, accompanied by a navigator. A ladder lead up to a hatch in the roof. He climbed into the fierce, actinic sunlight and a blow-torch breeze. Alvarez and Fischer were seated on a bench, swaying with the motion of the truck.
Hunter exchanged brief greetings and settled to quietly watching the passing landscape. They had moved from the cultivated littoral to an indeterminate area of characterless scrubland, and were fast approaching the jungle-covered foothills that folded away, ever hazier, to a point in the distance where the crags of the central mountains seemed to float on a sea of cloud.
They were following a route through the scrub which he and Sam had pioneered years ago in their own bison. The landmarks, such as they were - towering insects’ nests, and stunted, sun-warped trees - brought back memories that should have cheered him but which served only to remind him of Sam’s absence.
As the huge sun surged overhead and the heat became furnace-like, Alvarez and Dr Fischer erected a heat-reflective awning. The three men sat in silence and drank iced beers.
They left the scrubland behind and accelerated into the jungle, barrelling down the narrow defile torn through the dense undergrowth by Sam’s vehicle before them. It was minimally cooler in the shade of the jungle, out of the direct sunlight, but the absence of even a hot wind to stir the air served only to increase the humidity.
Around sunset they broke out the pre-packaged trays of food and bulbs of wine, and ate to the serenade of calls and cries from the surrounding jungle. Hunter recognised many of them, matching physical descriptions to the dozens of songs that shrilled through the twilight. When he tired of this he said goodnight to Alvarez and the Doctor and turned in. He lay awake for a long time until exhaustion, and the motion of the truck, sent him to sleep.
This routine set the pattern for the rest of the journey. Hunter would wake late, join Alvarez and the Doctor for a few beers, eat as the sun set, then retire and lie with his chaotic thoughts and fears until sleep pounced, unannounced. His chest pains continued, but, as Dr Fischer ordered, he reported them early, received the quelling injection and suffered no more.
To counter boredom, he pointed out various examples of Tartarean wildlife to his fellow travellers, giving accounts of the habits and peculiarities of the unique birds and beasts. Even this pastime, though, reminded him of Sam’s absence: she would have told him to stop being so damned sententious.
Seven days out of Apollinaire, they came to the clearing where Hunter had lost his life. Alvarez called a halt for a couple of hours, as they’d made good time so far. The driver slewed the bison to a sudden stop. The comparative silence of the clearing, after the incessant noise of the engine, was like a balm.
Hunter jumped down and walked away from Alvarez and the others, wanting to be alone with his thoughts. The encampment was as Sam had left it on the day of the attack; the dome-tent located centrally, the battery of cameras set up peripherally to record the teeming wildlife. His heart pounding, Hunter crossed to where he judged the attack had taken place. There was nothing to distinguish the area; the disturbed earth had scabbed over with moss and plants, and the broken undergrowth in the margin of the jungle had regrown. He looked down the length of his new body, for the first time fully apprehending the miracle of his renewed existence. Overcome by an awareness of the danger, he hurried back to the truck.
Sam had been this way - the tracks of her bison had patterned the floor of the clearing - but if she had left; any recorded message there was no sign, only the ubiquitous radio transmitter which she had dropped at intervals of a hundred kilometres along her route.
They ate their evening meal in the clearing - a novelty after having to contend with the constant bucking motion of the truck at mealtimes so far. No sooner had the sun set, flooding the jungle with an eerie crimson night light, than they were aboard the bison again and surging through the jungle into territory new to Hunter.
Over the next six days, the tracked bison climbed through the increasingly dense jungle, traversing steep inclines that would have defeated lesser vehicles. They halted once more, two days short of their destination, at a natural pass in the mountainside which had been blocked, obviously since Sam’s passage, by a small rockfall.
While Alvarez’s men cleared the obstruction, Hunter walked back along the track and stared out over the continent they had crossed. They were at a high elevation now, and the jungle falling away, the distant flat scrubland and cultivated seaboard margin, was set out below him like a planetary surveyor’s scale model. Over the sea, the nebulous sphere of the dying sun was like a baleful eye, watching him, daring their mission to succeed before the inevitable explosion.
Alvarez called to Hunter, and they boarded the truck on the last leg of the journey.
The night before they reached the valley where the star-ship had crash-landed, Hunter dreamed of Sam. The nightmare was vague and surreal, lacking events and incidents but overburdened with mood. He experienced the weight of some inexpressible depression, saw again and again the distant image of Sam, calling for him.
He awoke suddenly, alerted by something. He lay on his back, blinking up at the ceiling. Then he realised what was wrong. The truck was no longer in motion; the engine was quiet. He splashed his face with cold water and pulled on his coverall. He left his cabin and climbed down into the fierce sunlight, his mood affected by some residual depression from the nightmare. He joined the others, gathered around the nose of the bison, and stared without a word into the valley spread out below.
In Father Rogers’ story the valley had been snow-filled, inhospitable, but over the intervening years the snow had melted, evaporated by the increased temperature, and plant life in abundance had returned to this high region. A carpet of grass covered the valley floor, dotted with a colourful display of wild flowers. Over the edges of the lower peaks which surrounded the valley, vines and creepers were encroaching like invaders over a battlement.
Hunter was suddenly aware of his heartbeat as he stared into the valley and made out the sleek, broken-backed shape of a starship, its nose buried in a semi-circular mound it had ploughed all those years ago, grassed over now like some ancient earthwork. Little of the original paintwork was observable through the cocoon of grass and creepers that had captured the ship since the thaw.
Then he made out, in the short meadow grass of the valley, the tracks of Sam’s vehicle leading to the ship. Of her bison there was no sign. He set off at a walk, then began running towards the stranded starship.
He paused before the ramp that led up to the entrance, then cautiously climbed inside. Creepers and moss had penetrated a good way into the main corridor. He called his wife’s name, his voice echoing in the silence. The ship seemed deserted. He returned outside, into the dazzling sunlight, and made a complete circuit of the ship. Sam’s truck wasn’t there - but he did see, leading away up the valley, to a distant, higher valley, the parallel imprint of vehicle tracks in the grass.
Beside the ramp was a radio beacon. Tied to the end of its aerial was Sam’s red-and-white polka-dotted bandanna. Hunter untied it and discovered an ear-phone.
Up the valley, the others were approaching in the bison. Before they reached him, Hunter sat on the ramp, activated the ‘phone and held it to his ear.
The sound of Sam’s voice filled him with joy at first, then a swift, stabbing sadness that he had only her voice.
* * * *
Somewhere in the interior . . . Luke’s day, 26th, St Bede’s month, 1720, Tartarean Calendar.
I’ve decided to keep a regular record of my journey, more for something to do before I sleep each night than anything else.
I set off from Apollinaire three days ago and made good time, driving for ten, twelve hours a day. I preferred the days, even though the driving was difficult - the nights seemed to go on forever. It didn’t occur to me until I stopped on that first evening that I’d never camped alone in the interior before. It was a long time before I got to sleep -what with all the noise, the animal cries. The following nights were a bit better, as I got used to being alone. On the morning of the fourth day I was awoken by a great flare from the sun. I nearly panicked. I thought this was it, the supernova. Then I recalled all the other times it’d done that, when you were with me, Hunter. It wasn’t the end, then - but perhaps it was some kind of warning. Nothing much else to report at the moment. Long, hot days. Difficult driving. I stopped yesterday at the clearing where ... it happened. It brings back terrible memories, Hunter. I’m missing you. I can’t wait till you’re with me again. Freya is well.
The interior. Mary’s day, 34th, St Bede’s month.
I’ve spent the last few days trying to find the best route through the damned foothills. The map’s useless. I’ve tried three different routes and I’ve had to turn back three times, wasting hours. Now I think I’ve found the best way through.
The Central Mountains. Mathew’s day, 6th, St Botolph’s month.
Well, I’m in the mountains now. The going is slow. What with a map that’s no damned good at all, and the terrain clogged with new jungle since the thaw . . . I’m making precious little progress. Sometimes just ten kays a day. I haven’t had a proper wash for ages, but I’m eating and sleeping well. I’m okay.
Central Mountains. John’s day, 13th, St Botolph’s month.
Another frustrating week. I suppose it’s a miracle that I’ve been able to get this far, but the bison’s a remarkable vehicle. It just keeps on going. I reckon I’m three weeks from Codey’s Valley, as I’ve started to think of it. At this rate you won’t be far behind me. I’ve decided to leave the recording on one of the radio beacons somewhere, so you’ll know in advance that I’m okay. So is Freya.
Central Mountains. Mark’s day, 22nd, St Botolph’s month.
I’ve been making good progress, putting in sometimes fourteen hours at the wheel. I’ve had some good luck. Found navigable passes first time. I should make Codey’s Valley in a week, if all goes well.
Central Mountains. Mary’s day, 27th, St Botolph’s month.
I’m just two or three days from Codey’s Valley, and whatever I’ll find there. I must admit, I haven’t really thought about what might be awaiting me - I’ve had too much to concentrate on just getting here, never mind worrying about the future. It’ll probably just be a big anticlimax, whatever. I’ll wait for you there, at the ship.
It’s dark outside. I’m beneath a great overhanging shelf of rock that’s blocking out the night sky’s lights. I can’t hear or see a single thing out there. I might be the only living soul for kilometres ... I just want all this to be over. I want to get away from this damned planet. Promise me we’ll go on a long, relaxing holiday when all this is over, Hunter, okay?
Codey’s Valley. I don’t know what date, St Cyprian’s month.
I ... A lot has happened over the past couple of weeks. I hardly know where to begin. I’ve spent maybe ten, eleven days in a rejuvenation pod - but I’m not really sure how long. It seemed like ages. I’m okay, but still a bit woozy . . . I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll go back a bit - to the 28th, I think, when it happened.
I was a day away from the valley, according to the map. I was feeling elated that I was nearly there, but at the same time ... I don’t know, I was apprehensive. I could think of nothing else but the Slarque, what they’d done to you. What they might do to me if they chose to . . . Anyway, perhaps I wasn’t concentrating for thinking about this. I was driving up a ravine, crossing the steep slope. I’d had little trouble with the bison until then, so I think what happened was my fault. I lost control. You know how you feel in that terrible split second when you realise something life-threatening is about to happen, well . . . the truck rolled and I couldn’t do a thing about it. I was knocked unconscious.
I don’t know how long I was out, maybe a day or two. The pain brought me around a few times, then put me under again, it was that bad. I thought I’d cracked my skull, and there was something wrong with my pelvis. I couldn’t move. The bison was on its side, with all the loose contents of the cab piled up around me. I knew that if only I could get to the controls, I’d be able to right the bison and set off again. But when I tried to move - the pain! Then wonderful oblivion.
When I came to my senses, the truck was no longer on its side. It was upright again - and I wasn’t where I’d been, in the cab. I was stretched out in the corridor, something soft cradling my head.
Then the truck started up and roared off up the side of the ravine, the motion wracking me with pain. I was delirious. I didn’t know what the hell was happening. I cried out for the truck to stop, but I couldn’t make myself heard over the noise of the engine.
When I regained consciousness again, night was falling. I’d been out for hours. The truck was moving, but along a flat surface that didn’t cause me pain. I tried to look down the length of my body, into the cab, and as I did so the driver turned in his seat and peered down at me.
I knew it was Codey.
Spacers never lose that look. He was short and thickset, crop-headed. I reckoned he was about seventy - Codey’s age - and though his body looked younger, that of someone half his age, his face was old and lined, as if he’d lived through a hundred years of hardship.
I passed out again. When I came to, I thought I’d dreamed of Codey. The truck was stopped, its engine ticking in the silence. Then the side door opened and Codey, wearing old Fleet regulation silvers, climbed up and knelt beside me. He held an injector.
He told me not to worry, that he was going to take me to the ship, where he had a rejuvenation pod. My pelvis was broken, but I’d soon be okay ... He placed the cold nozzle to my bicep and plunged.
I felt nothing as he lifted me and carried me from the bison, across to the ship. He eased me down long corridors, into a chamber I recognised as an astrodome - the glass all covered and cloaked with creepers - and lay me in the rejuvenation pod. As I slipped into sleep, he stared down at me. He looked worried and unsure.
Yesterday, I awoke feeling . . . well, rejuvenated. The pelvis was fine. Codey assisted me from the pod and led me to a small room containing a bunk, told me to make myself at home. The first thing I did was to hurry out to the truck and root around among its tumbled contents until I found the container, then carried it back to my new quarters. Codey watched me closely, asked me what it was. I didn’t tell him.
I remembered what Fr Rogers had said about him, that he thought Codey had flipped. And that was then. For the past thirty years he’d lived up here, alone. When I looked into his face I saw the consequence of that ordeal in his eyes.
Codey’s Valley. Mark’s day, 16th, St Cyprian’s month.
Early this morning I left my cabin, went out to the truck and armed myself. If the story Father Rogers had told me in the monastery garden was true, about Codey and the Slarque . . .
I remained outside the ship, trying to admire the beauty of the valley.
Later, Codey came out carrying a pre-heated tray of food. He offered it to me and said that he’d grown the vegetables in his own garden. I sat on the ramp and ate, Codey watching me. He seemed nervous, avoided eye contact. He’d not known human company in thirty years.
We’d hardly spoken until that point. Codey hadn’t seemed curious about me or why I was here, and I hadn’t worked out the best way to go about verifying Father Rogers’ story.
I said that Rogers had told me about the crash-landing.
I recorded the following dialogue:
CODEY: Rogers? He survived? He made it to Apollinaire?
SAM: He made it. He’s still there—
CODEY: I didn’t give him a chance of surviving . . . They monitored him as far as the next valley down, then lost him—
SAM: They?
CODEY: The Slarque, who else? Didn’t Rogers tell you they were in contact with me?
SAM: Yes - yes, he did. I didn’t know whether to believe him. Are you ... are you still in contact?
CODEY: They’re in contact with me . . .You don’t believe me, girl?
SAM: I ... I don’t know—
CODEY: How the hell you think I found you, ten klicks down the next valley? They read your presence.
SAM: They can read my mind?
CODEY: Well, let’s just say that they’re sympathetic to your thoughts, shall we?
SAM: Then they know why I’m here?
CODEY: Of course.
SAM: So ... If they’re in contact with you, you’ll know why I’m here . . .
(Codey stood up suddenly and strode off, as if I’d angered him. He stood with his back to me, his head in his hands. I thought he was sobbing. When he turned around, he was grinning . . . insanely.)
CODEY: They told me. They told me why you’re here!
SAM: . . . They did’?
CODEY: They don’t want your help. They don’t want to be saved. They have no wish to leave Tartarus. They belong here. This is their home. They believe that only if they die with their planet will their souls be saved.
SAM: But . . . but we can offer them a habitat identical to Tartarus - practically unbounded freedom—
CODEY: Their religious beliefs would not allow them to leave. It’d be an act of disgrace in the eyes of their forefathers if they fled the planet now.
SAM: They . . . they have a religion? But I thought they were animals . . .
CODEY: They might have devolved, but they’re still intelligent. Their kind have worshipped the supernova for generations. They await the day of glory with hope . . .
SAM: And you?
CODEY: I ... I belong here, too. I couldn’t live among humans again. I belong with the Slarque.
SAM: Why? Why do they tolerate you? One . . . one of them killed my husband—
CODEY: I performed a service for them, thirty years ago, the first of two such. In return they keep me company . . . in my head . . . and sometimes bring me food.
SAM: Thirty years ago . . . ? You gave them the prisoner?
CODEY: They commanded me to do it! If I’d refused . . . Don’t you see, they would have taken me or Rogers. I had no choice, don’t you understand?
SAM: My God. Three years ago . . . my husband? Did you . . . ?
CODEY: I . . . please ... I was monitoring your broadcasts, the footage you beamed to Apollinaire. You were out of range of the Slarque up here, and they were desperate. I had to do it, don’t you see? If not . . . they would have taken me.
SAM: But why? Why? If they bring you food, then why do they need humans?
Codey broke down then. He fled sobbing up the ramp and into the ship. I didn’t know whether to go after him, comfort him, try to learn the truth. In the event I remained where I was, too emotionally drained to make a move.
It’s evening now. I’ve locked myself in my cabin. I don’t trust Codey - and I don’t trust the Slarque. I’m armed and ready, but I don’t know if I can keep awake all night.
* * * *
Oh my God. Oh, Jesus. I don’t believe it. I can’t—
He must have overridden the locking system, got in during the night as I slept. But how did he know? The Slarque, of course. If they read my mind, knew my secret . . .
I didn’t tell you, Hunter. I wanted it to be a surprise.
I wanted you to be there when Freya was growing up. I wanted you to see her develop from birth, to share with you her infancy, her growth, to cherish her with you.
Two and a half years ago, Hunter, I gave birth to our daughter. Immediately I had her suspended. For the past two years I’ve carried her everywhere I’ve been, in a stasis container. When we were reunited, we would cease the suspension, watch our daughter grow.
Last night, Codey stole Freya. Took the stasis container. I’m so sorry, Hunter. I’m so . . .
I’ve got to think straight. Codey took his crawler and headed up the valley to the next one. I can see the tracks in the grass.
I’m going to follow him in my truck. I’m going to get our daughter back.
I’ll leave this recording here, for when you come. Forgive me, Hunter . . . Please, forgive me.
* * * *
He sat on the ramp of the starship with his head in his hands, the sound of his pulse surging in his ears as Alvarez passed Sam’s recording to Dr Fischer. Hunter was aware of a mounting pain in his chest. He found himself on the verge of hysterical laughter at the irony of crossing the galaxy to meet his daughter, only to have her snatched from his grasp at the very last minute.
He looked up at Alvarez. ‘But why . . . ? What can they want with her?’
Alvarez avoided his gaze. ‘I wish I knew—’
‘We’ve got to go after them!’
Alvarez nodded, turned and addressed his men. Hunter watched, removed from the reality of the scene before him, as Alvarez’s minions armed themselves with lasers and stun rifles and boarded the truck.
Hunter rode on the roof with Alvarez and Dr Fischer. As they raced up the incline of the valley, towards the v-shaped cutting perhaps a kilometre distant, he scanned the rocky horizon for any sign of the vehicles belonging to Sam or Codey.
His wife’s words rang in his ears, the consequences of what she’d told him filling him with dread. For whatever reasons, Codey had supplied the Slarque with humans on two other occasions. Obviously Sam had failed to see that she had been led into a trap, with Freya as the bait.
They passed from the lower valley, accelerated into one almost identical, but smaller and enclosed by steep battlements of jagged rock.
There, located in the centre of the greensward, were Codey’s crawler and Sam’s truck.
They motored cautiously towards the immobile vehicles.
Twenty metres away, Hunter could wait no longer. He leapt from the truck and set off at a sprint, Alvarez calling after him to stop. The pain in his chest chose that second to bite, winding him.
Codey’s crawler was empty. He ran from the vehicle and hauled himself aboard Sam’s truck. It, too, was empty.
Alvarez’s men had caught up with him. One took his upper arm in a strong yet gentle grip, led him back to Alvarez who was standing on the greensward, peering up at the surrounding peaks.
Two of his men had erected the collapsible cage, then joined the others at strategic positions around the valley. They knelt behind the cover of rocks, stun rifles ready.
An amplified voice rang through the air. ‘Hunter!’
‘Codey . . .’ Alvarez said.
‘Step forward, Hunter. Show yourself.’ The command echoed around the valley, but seemed to issue from high in the peaks straight ahead.
Hunter walked forward ten paces, paused and called through cupped hands, ‘What do you want, Codey? Where’s Sam and my daughter?’
‘The Slarque want you, Hunter,’ Codey’s voice boomed. ‘They want what is theirs.’
Hunter turned to Alvarez, as if for explanation.
‘Believe me,’ Alvarez said, ‘It was the only foolproof way we had of luring the Slarque—’
Hunter was aware of the heat of the sun, ringing blows down on his head. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why me? What do they want?’
Alvarez stared at Hunter. ‘Three years ago,’ he said, ‘when the Slarque attacked and killed you, it laid the embryos of its young within your remains, as has been their way since time immemorial. The primates they used in times past began to die out millennia ago; hence the fall of the Slarque. It so happened that humans are also a suitable repository ... Of course, when Sam rescued your remains and had them suspended, the embryos too were frozen. We discovered them when we examined your remains on Million.’
Hunter was shaking his head. ‘You used me . . .’
‘It was part of the deal, Hunter. For your resurrection, you would lead us to the Slarque.’
‘But if you wanted the Slarque, you had them! Why didn’t you raise the embryos for your exhibition?’
‘The young would not survive more than a few months. We examined the embryos and found they’d been weakened by inbreeding, by cumulative genetic defects. I suspect that the brood incubated in the body of the prisoner thirty years ago did not survive. We need the only existing pair of adult Slarque.’
Something moved within Hunter’s chest. He winced.
Dr Fischer approached. ‘A pain-killer.’
Hunter was unable to move, horrified at what Alvarez had told him and at the same time in need of the analgesic to quell the slicing pain. He just stood as Fischer plunged the injector into his neck.
Codey’s voice rang out again. ‘Step forward, Hunter! Approach the south end of the valley. A simple trade: for the Slarque young, your wife and daughter.’
Hunter stepped forward, began walking.
Behind him, Alvarez said, ‘Stop right there, Hunter. Let the Slarque come to you . . . Remember our deal?’
Hunter hesitated, caught between obeying the one man capable of granting him life, and the demands of the Slarque who held his wife and daughter.
The pain in his chest was almost unbearable, as if his innards were being lacerated by swift slashes of a razor blade. My God, if this was the pain with the sedative . . .
He cried out, staggered forward.
‘Hunter!’ Alvarez cried.
He turned. He saw Alvarez raise the laser to his shoulder, take aim. He dived as Alvarez fired, the cobalt bolt lancing past him with a scream of ionised air.
He looked up the valley, detecting movement. Two figures emerged from behind a jagged rock. They were at once grotesquely alien and oddly humanoid: scaled, silver creatures with evil, Scorpion tails. What invested them with humanity, Hunter thought, was their simple desire to rescue their young. And even as he realised this, he was overcome by the terror of their initial attack, three years ago.
Behind him, he heard Alvarez give the order to his men. He turned in time to see them raise their stun-guns and take aim at the Slarque.
‘No!’ he cried.
A quick volley of laser fire issued from a single point in the rocks high above. The first vector hit Alvarez, reducing him to a charred corpse. The succeeding blasts accounted for the others, picking them off one by one.
Only Dr Fischer remained, hands in the air, terrified.
Hunter hauled himself to his feet and cried Sam’s name, trying to ignore the pain in his chest.
The Slarque approached him. As they advanced, Hunter tried to tell himself that he should not feel fear: their interest in him was entirely understandable.
‘Sam!’ he cried again.
In his last few seconds of consciousness, Hunter saw his wife run from the cover of the rocks and dash past the Slarque. He was suddenly struck by the improbable juxtaposition of ugliness and extreme beauty. Behind her, he saw a thin, bedraggled human figure - the madman Codey, hefting a rifle. In that second he remembered the death of Alvarez, and wondered if Codey’s action in killing the doctor meant that he, Hunter, would die on this infernal planet without hope of resurrection.
He keeled over before Sam reached him, and then she was cradling him, repeating his name. Hunter lay in her arms, stared up at her face eclipsing the swollen sun.
He felt the life forms within him begin to struggle, a sharp, painful tugging as they writhed from his chest and through his entrails, the tissue of his stomach an easier exit point than his ribcage.
‘Sam,’ he said weakly. ‘Freya . . . ?’
Sam smiled reassurance through her tears. Behind her, Hunter saw the monstrous heads of the Slarque as they waited. He tried to raise his face to Sam’s, but he was losing consciousness, fading fast. He was aware of a sudden loosening of his stomach muscles as the alien litter fought to be free.
The he cried out, and died for the second time.
* * * *
Aboard the Angel of Mercy, orbiting Tartarus Major, 1st, May, 23,210 — Galactic Reckoning.
I need to make this last entry, to round things off, to talk.
With Dr Fischer I collected the remains - the bodies of Alvarez and his men - and your body, Hunter. Fischer claims he’ll be able to resurrect Alvarez and the other men lasered by Codey, but he didn’t sound so sure. Personally, I hope he fails with Alvarez, after what he put you through. The man doesn’t deserve to live.
I’ve negotiated a price for our story with NewsCorp - they’ve promised enough to pay for your resurrection. It’ll be another three years before you’re alive again. It’s a long time to wait, and I’ll miss you, but I guess I shouldn’t complain. Of course, I’ll keep Freya suspended. I look forward to the day when together we can watch her grow.
The final exodus has begun. I can look through the view-screen of my cabin and see Tartarus and the giant sphere of the sun, looming over it. Against the sun, a hundred dark specks rise like ashes - the ships that carry the citizens to safety. There’s something sad and ugly about the scene, but at the same time there’s something achingly beautiful about it, too.
By the time we’re together again, Hunter, Tartarus will be no more. But the exploding star will be in the heavens still, marking the place in space where the Slarque and poor Codey, and the other lost souls who wished for whatever reasons to stay on Tartarus, perished in the apocalypse.
I can’t erase from my mind the thought of the Slarque, those sad, desperate creatures who wanted only the right to die with their young in the supernova, and who, thanks to Codey and you, will now be able to do so.
* * * *
|
H |
e buried Francesca in the rich jungle soil of Tartarus Major while the sky pulsed with the photon haemorrhage of the supernova and the Abbot of the Church of the Ultimate Sacrifice knelt and chanted prayer.
And he thought that was the end of the affair.
* * * *
Hans Cramer met Francesca when she was eighteen, two decades his junior but wise beyond her years, and already a second-class helio-meteorologist aboard one of the Fleet’s finest nova observation vessels. Cramer was employed as an itinerant lecturer, teaching philosophy and theology to the reluctant crews of the various ships of the Zakinthos Line. His posting to the observation sailship Dawn Light was just another move, but one that changed his life.
Francesca was a regular at his rambling lectures in the vast auditorium of the city-sized sailship. She was distinguished by her striking Venezuelan face and jet black mass of hair - an affectation in space, where so many crew went partly shorn or bald. What attracted him initially was not so much her physical aspect as her youth, and that she attended every one of his lectures. She was that rarity among spacers: a student who wanted to learn. After years of having his talks received with boredom, or at best polite apathy, Cramer found her attentiveness exhilarating. It was natural that he should single her out for special tuition. He gave her one-to-one lessons, and she responded. He prided himself on the fact that she excelled herself, absorbed everything he had to offer, and was still hungry for more.
Inevitably, perhaps, they transcended the teacher-pupil relationship and became lovers. It was a gradual process, but one which culminated in an event that informed them both that their feelings for each other were reciprocated. They had been discussing the physics of spatial dimensions congruent to singularities, and the conversation continued well beyond the time Cramer usually allotted for her tuition. The talk turned general, and then personal. There was a period of silence, and Cramer looked into the depths of her Indian eyes - and he was suddenly aware of his desire, affection, and overwhelming need to be responsible for Francesca.
For the next year Cramer lectured aboard the Dawn Light as it sailed from star to unstable star, and their love deepened into a thorough understanding of one another. She told Cramer that which she had never told anyone before: how, at the age of ten, she had lost her father. He had been a scientist, working on the planet of a sun due to go nova, when the sun blew before its time and killed him and his scientific team . . . This, Cramer thought, helped to explain the choice of her profession.
Cramer became for Francesca a combination of lover-teacher-protector, as well as a friend and confidant . . . And for him Francesca was the first person in his life to remind him that he was not, contrary to nearly forty years of assumptions otherwise, the fulcrum of the universe. Her naivety, her vitality and honesty, her willingness to learn, her trust in others - he was in awe of all these things. Sometimes he wanted to protect her from herself when others might take advantage, but at the same time he learned from her that openness and trust can bring its own rewards: contact with one’s fellows, even friendships, which for long enough he had shunned. Her youth and enthusiasm were a foil to Cramer’s age and cynicism, and though at times he found it exhausting, more often than not he was swept along heedless by the tide of her passion.
Francesca had her dark side, though.
Six months after they became lovers, she slipped into a sullen, uncommunicative depression. Often he found her in tears, his entreaties ignored. He assumed that the chemical magic that had attracted her to him had soured, that their time together had run its course.
Then, one rest period, Cramer found her in a personal nacelle which obtruded through the skin of the ship and afforded a magnificent view of the blazing variable below. Francesca had sought privacy in which to brood. He lowered himself in beside her and waited.
After a period of silence, she asked in a whisper, ‘What do you believe, Hans?’
Cramer had never spoken to her about his beliefs, or lack of - perhaps fearing that his apathy might frighten her away. ‘I was once a nihilist,’ he said, ‘but now I believe in nothing.’
She slapped his face. ‘Be serious!’
He was serious. ‘Nothing,’ he said.
She was silent, a small frown of puzzlement denting her forehead. At last she murmured, ‘I need belief. I need to believe in something . . . something more than all this.’ She made a spread-fingered gesture to indicate everything, all existence. ‘Life is so meaningless, if this is all there is to it - life. There must be something more!’
He stroked a strand of hair from her Indian eyes.
She looked at him. ‘Don’t you fear death? Don’t you wake up panicking in the early hours, thinking, “One day I’ll be dead for all eternity”?’
He could not help but smile. ‘At one time I did,’ he said. ‘But no more.’ He told her that it was as if his subconscious had become inured to the fact of his mortality, was no longer daunted by the inevitability of his death.
Francesca was crying. ‘I hate being alive,’ she sobbed, ‘if all it will end in is death.’
Cramer held her, soothed her with comforting noises, secretly relieved that he knew the reason for her depression. He told himself that it was nothing more than a stage through which everyone must pass - but, perhaps, he should have seen in her terror the seeds of a consuming obsession.
Six months later Cramer was posted to another ship - there was nothing he could do to avoid the transfer - and he saw Francesca only once every three months or so, when their dirtside leaves coincided. He had feared that the separation might have worked to dampen Francesca’s ardour, but the reverse was true. Their hurried, stolen weeks together were the happiest times of their lives.
And then, three years after their first meeting, Francesca was promoted, transferred to a ship bound for the Rim, to study the effects of an imminent supernova on the world of Tartarus Major.
* * * *
Cramer was on Earth, on long-service leave from the Fleet and teaching part-time at the University of Rio. Francesca was due back in a week, when her boat would dock at the Santiago shipyards for refurbishment. Cramer had a trekking holiday planned in the Andes, followed by a fortnight in Acapulco, before they said goodbye again and her ship whisked her off to some far, unstable star.
He could recall precisely where he was, what he was doing - even trivial things like what he was wearing at the time, and what mood he was in - when he heard about the crash-landing: in a cafe on the Rio seafront, drinking coffee and reading El Globe, wearing the kaftan Francesca had brought back from the Emirate colony of Al Haq, and feeling contentment at the thought of her imminent return. The wall-screen was relaying news to the cafe’s oblivious, chattering clientele. He took notice only when it was announced that a Fleet observation vessel had crash-landed on Tartarus Major. ‘The Pride of Valencia was mapping Tartarus for stress patterns and went down two days ago,’ said the reporter. ‘Casualty figures are not yet known. Other news . . .’
Cramer returned to his apartment, shock lending him a strange sense of calm in which he felt removed from the reality of his surroundings. He contacted the Fleet headquarters in Geneva, but was told that no details of the incident would be forthcoming until accident investigators had reported from Tartarus Major. Unable to bear the wait, the feeling of redundancy, he knew that the only course of action was to make his own way to Tartarus. He booked passage on an independent ship leaving Earth the following day, and spent the duration of the voyage under blissful sedation.
He had no idea what to expect on landing, but it was not the decrepit, medieval city of Baudelaire. It seemed to him that he had stepped back in time. Not only was the architecture and atmosphere of the place archaic, but the bureaucracy and services were likewise mired in the past. The prevailing ethos of the government departments he petitioned seemed to be that the loss of any starship - and minor officials seemed unsure as to whether a starship had been lost on Tartarus Major - was not the responsibility of their department, and Cramer was advised to see so-and-so at such-and-such a bureau. Added to which confusion, the entire population of the planet seemed to be packed into the capital city, eager to catch a boat off-planet before the supernova blew. Eventually, and with scant regard for his feelings, he was advised to check at the city morgue. Beside himself, he battled through the bustling streets until he came upon the relevant building. The chambers and corridors of the morgue were packed with the stiffened, shrouded figures of the dead. Here, tearful and in obvious distress, he had his first stroke of luck. He happened upon a harassed Fleet official, checking charred remains against the crew-list of the Pride of Valencia.
Cramer explained his predicament, and the official took sympathy and went through the names of the dead for that of Francesca.
She was not, apparently, in the morgue. All the bodies had been recovered from the site of the crash. According to the official, Cramer was in luck: he was advised to try the infirmary, where the twelve surviving crew members were receiving treatment.
Given hope, he was filled with fear, now, at the thought of Francesca’s having survived - or rather he feared the state in which she might have survived. Would he find Francesca reduced to a brain-dead wreck, a hopelessly injured cripple? He considered only the worst-case scenario as he made his way to the infirmary. He explained his situation to a doctor who escorted him to the ward where the survivors lay. As the medic checked the records, Cramer strode down the line of beds - not rejuvenation pods, in this backward hole, but beds! - fearful lest he should come upon Francesca, yet petrified that he should not.
She was not on the ward.
The doctor joined Cramer, carrying the crew-list of the Pride of Valencia. There was one name outstanding, accounted for neither in the morgue nor in the hospital: Francesca Maria Rodriguez.
Cramer was in turmoil. ‘Then where the hell is she?’
The doctor placed a soothing hand on his shoulder. ‘Two of the injured were found in the jungle by an order of monks who took them in and treated their wounds. One male crew member died - the other, Rodriguez, is still undergoing treatment.’
‘Is she badly injured?’
‘I’m sorry. I have no records . . .’ He paused. ‘You might try the Church of the Ultimate Sacrifice, just along the street. They should be able to help you.’
Cramer thanked him and, filled with a mixture of despair and hope that left him mentally exhausted, he almost ran from the infirmary. He found the church without difficulty: in a street of mean timber buildings, it was the only stone-built edifice, a towering cathedral along classical lines.
He hurried inside. A cowled figure riding an invalid carriage barred his way. Desperately Cramer explained himself. The disabled cleric told him to wait, and propelled his carriage up the aisle. While he was gone, Cramer gazed about the sumptuous interior. He noticed the strange, scorpion-like statue above the altar, flanked by a human figure bound to a cross - its arms and legs removed so that it resembled the remains of some ancient statue. He could not help but wonder what perverted cult he had stumbled upon.
The monk returned and gestured that Cramer should follow him. He led the way to a small study behind the altar. ‘The Abbot,’ he murmured as Cramer passed inside.
Behind a large desk was an imposing figure garbed in a black habit, his face concealed by a deep cowl.
Nervously, Cramer sat down. Prompted by the Abbot’s silence, he babbled his story.
Halfway through, he paused and peered into the shadow of the Abbot’s hood. The holy man seemed to have his eyes closed. Cramer noticed the dried, discoloured orbs tied to his right wrist, but failed to make the connection.
He continued with what the doctor had told him about Francesca. When he had finished, the Abbot remained silent for some time. He placed his fingertips together in a miniature facsimile of the spire that surmounted the cathedral. He seemed to be contemplating.
He said at last, his voice a rasp, ‘Are you a believer, Mr Cramer?’
‘In your religion?’ Cramer shifted uncomfortably.
‘In any.’
‘I ... I have my own beliefs.’
‘That sounds to me like another way of admitting you’re an atheist.’
‘Does it matter?’ he asked. He contained his anger. The Abbot was, after all, his only link with Francesca.
The holy man seemed to take an age before he next spoke. ‘I can help you, Mr Cramer. Francesca is in the jungle.’
‘How badly . . .’ he began, the words catching in his throat.
‘Do not worry yourself unduly. She will live.’
Cramer sat back in his seat, relief washing over him. He imagined Francesca recuperating in some remote jungle hospital.
‘When can I see her?’
‘Tomorrow I return to the jungle to resume my pilgrimage. If you wish, you may accompany me.’
Cramer thanked him, relieved that at last his search was almost over.
‘I leave at first light,’ said the Abbot. ‘You will meet me here.’ And he gestured - parting his spired hands - to indicate that the audience was over.
That night Cramer found expensive lodging in a crowded boarding house. In the morning the sun rose huge and brooding over the parched city, though the sky had been lit all night long with the primary’s technicolour fulminations. He had slept badly, apprehensive as to the state in which he might find Francesca. At dawn he returned to the cathedral and met the Abbot, and they hurried through narrow alleyways to a jetty and a barge painted in the sable and scarlet colours of the Church.
The crew of two natives cast off the moorings and the barge slipped sideways into mid-stream before the engines caught. Cramer sat on the foredeck, in the shade of a canvas awning, and shared a thick red wine with the Abbot. The holy man threw back his cowl, and Cramer could not help but stare. The Abbot’s ears and nose had been removed, leaving only dark holes and scabrous scar tissue. His eyelids, stitched shut over hollow sockets, were curiously flattened, like miniature drum-heads. He kept his eyeballs, dried and shrunken, on a thong of optic nerves around his wrist.
The barge proceeded upriver, against a tide of smaller craft streaming in the opposite direction. The Abbot cocked his head towards their puttering engines. ‘Some believed the things which were spoken,’ he quoted, ‘and some did not. Once, sir, all Tartarus believed. Now the faith is defended by a devout minority.’
Cramer murmured something non-committal in reply. He was not interested in the Abbot’s belief system and its macabre extremes. For fifteen years he had taught students the rudiments of the various major faiths. Now religion, every religion, sickened him. In his opinion, superstitious belief systems were just one more political tool that man used to subjugate, terrorise and enslave his fellow man.
He sat and drank and watched the passing landscape. At one point they idled by an ancient temple complex. Many of the buildings were in ruins; others, miraculously, considering their age, stood tall and proud. Towers and minarets of some effulgent stone like rose-coloured marble, they were sufficiently alien in design to inspire wonder. As the barge sailed slowly by, Cramer made out six statues — another example of the long, scorpion-like insects, tails hooked in readiness.
He finished his wine, excused himself and retreated to his cabin. He drew the shutters against the light and, despite the heat, enjoyed the sleep he had been denied the night before.
He awoke hours later, much refreshed, hardly able to believe after the trials of the past two days that Francesca would soon be in his arms. He climbed to the deck. The sun was directly overhead - he must have slept for five or six hours. The barge was pulling into a jetty. A tumble-down collection of timber buildings lined the riverbank. The Abbot appeared at Cramer’s side. ‘Chardon’s Landing,’ he said. ‘From here we walk. It is thirty kilometres to the plateau.’
With scarcely a delay they set off into the jungle, Cramer marvelling at the blind man’s sure tread as he navigated his way through the jungle. At first the trek was not arduous. The way had been cleared, and they followed a well-defined path through the undergrowth. Only later, as they put twenty kilometres behind them, and the path began to climb, did Cramer begin to feel the strain. They slowed, and halted often to swallow water from leather canteens.
They continued through the long, sultry hours of afternoon; at last, when Cramer thought he could continue no more, they came to a clearing. Before them, the plateau fell away in a sheer drop, affording an open panorama of tree-tops stretching all the way to the northern horizon beneath a violent, actinic sky.
Only then did Cramer notice the tent, to one side of the clearing.
He turned to the Abbot. ‘Where are we?’
The holy man gestured. ‘Francesca’s tent,’ was his only reply.
‘But this can’t be the mission . . .’ Cramer began.
He heard a sound from across the clearing, and turned quickly. He stared in dread as Francesca drew aside the tent flap and stepped out. His heart began a laboured pounding. She stood, tiny and trim in her radiation silvers. He searched her for any sign of injury - but she seemed whole and perfect, as he had dreamed of her all along. She stared at him, appearing uncertain at his presence. A smile came hesitantly to her lips.
He crossed the clearing and hugged her to his chest.
She pulled away, shaking her head. ‘I meant to contact you. It’s just . . .’ Cramer had expected tears; instead, she was almost matter-of-fact.
‘Francesca . . . What’s happening? The Abbot—’ He nodded towards the holy man, who was busying himself with a second tent across the clearing. ‘He said that you were injured, in hospital—’
She looked pained. ‘Come. We have a lot to talk about.’ She took his hand and drew him into the tent.
They sat facing each other. He scanned her for injuries, but saw no bandages, compresses, or scabs of synthetic flesh.
She read his gaze, and smiled. ‘Cuts and bruises, nothing serious.’
Cramer felt a constriction in his throat. ‘You were lucky.’
She lowered her head, looked at him through her lashes. ‘You don’t know how lucky,’ she murmured.
A silence developed, and he wished at that moment that silence was all that separated them; but they seemed divided by more than just the inability to communicate meaningfully.
Then he saw the book beside her inflatable pillow. Embossed in scarlet upon its black cover was the symbol of a scorpion beside a dismembered human figure.
‘Francesca . . .’ he pleaded. ‘What’s happening?’
She did not meet his gaze. ‘What do you mean?’
He indicated the holy book.
It was some time before she could bring herself to respond. At last she looked up, her eyes wide, staring, as if still in shock from the trauma of the crash-landing.
‘After the accident,’ she began, ‘I regained consciousness. I lay in the wreckage, surrounded by the others . . . my friends and colleagues. They were dead . . .’ She paused, gathered herself. ‘I couldn’t move. I saw a figure, the Abbot, and then other robed monks, moving among the crew, giving blessings, first-aid where they could. Eventually the Abbot found me. They loaded me onto a stretcher, knocked me out. The next thing I remember, I was in the mission hospital at Chardon’s Landing,’
‘And the Abbot did all this without eyes—?’
‘He was sighted then,’ Francesca said. ‘Only later did he return to Baudelaire to petition for penance physicale.’ She paused, continued, ‘Before that, while I recuperated, he told me about his faith, his quest.’
Cramer echoed that last word, sickened by something in her tone.
‘The Abbot is searching for the lost temple of the Slarque,’ Francesca went on, ‘the race which lived on Tartarus before humankind. This temple is of special significance to his religion.’
Something turned in his stomach. He gestured towards the book. ‘Do you believe that?’ he said.
She stared at him with her green and vital eyes. ‘I’m intrigued by the extinct aliens,’ she replied. ‘I was always interested in xeno-archaeology. I want to help the Abbot find the temple.’
He felt betrayed. ‘You act as his eyes?’
She nodded, then reached out and took his hand. ‘I love you, Hans. I always have and always will. This . . . this is something I must experience. Please, don’t obstruct me.’
The Abbot called that a meal was prepared.
The sun was dipping below the horizon, presaging the nightly show of tattered flames and flares like shredded banners. They sat in the shade of the jungle - Cramer relieved when Francesca chose to sit next to him - and ate from a platter of meat, cheese and bread. He recalled her words, her avowal of love, but they did nothing to banish his jealousy.
The Abbot poured wine and spoke of his religion, his belief that only through physical, mortification would his God be appeased and the sun cease its swelling. Cramer listened with mounting incredulity. From time to time he glanced at Francesca. The girl he knew of old would have piped up with some pithy remark along the lines that the holy man’s fellow believers had been sawing bits off themselves for centuries, and still the sun was unstable. But she said nothing. She seemed hypnotised by the Abbot’s words.
Cramer was drunk with the wine, or he would have held his tongue. ‘A lot your mortification has achieved so far,’ he slurred, indicating the burning heavens.
‘Once we locate the temple of the Slarque,’ said the Abbot, ‘our efforts will be rewarded. Be glad and rejoice, for the Lord will do great things.’ According to his holy book, he said, strange feats and miracles were to be expected in the alien ruins - but by this time Cramer had heard enough, and concentrated on his drinking.
He shared Francesca’s tent that night. He sat cross-legged, a bottle of wine half-full in his lap. Francesca lay on her back, staring up at the sloping fabric.
He processed his thoughts and carefully ordered his words. ‘How . . . how can you be sure that you’ll find the temple before the sun—?’
‘The Abbot and his minions have searched most of the jungle - there is only this sector to go. We will find the shrine.’
‘You sound in little doubt.’
She turned her head and stared at him. ‘I am in no doubt,’ she said.
He determined, then, that he would not let her go. He would restrain her somehow, drag her back to Baudelaire and then to Earth.
‘When do you set out on this . . . this expedition?’ he asked.
‘Tomorrow, or maybe the day after.’ There was defiance in her tone.
‘Then you’ll return . . . ?’ He could not bring himself to say, ‘to me?’ Instead he said, ‘You’ll rejoin the Fleet?’
She glanced at him, seemed to be searching for the words with which to explain herself. ‘Hans ... I joined the Fleet believing that through science we might do something to stabilise these novae. Over the years, I’ve come to realise that nothing can be done.’ She frowned. ‘I can’t go back, rejoin the Fleet.’ She hesitated, seemed to want to go on, but instead just shook her head in frustration.
She turned her back on him and slept.
Her words echoing in his head, Cramer drank himself unconscious.
He was awoken by a sound, perhaps hours later. He oriented himself and reached out for Francesca, but she was gone. He gathered his wits, peered from the tent. Across the clearing he made out Francesca’s short figure next to the tall form of the Abbot. They were shouldering their packs, their movements careful so as not to wake him. Cramer felt the smouldering pain of betrayal in his gut. From his pack he drew his laser and slipped from the tent. As he moved around the clearing, keeping to the shadows, he was formulating a plan. He would stun both Francesca and the Abbot, then flee with her back to the port and take the first ship home. The girl was not in her right mind, could not be held responsible for her actions.
Francesca saw him coming. She stared at him, wide-eyed.
Dry of throat, Cramer said, ‘You were leaving me!’
‘Do not try to stop us,’ the Abbot warned.
Francesca cried, ‘I must go! If you love me, if you trust me, then you’ll let me go!’
‘What have you done to her!’ he yelled at the Abbot.
‘You cannot stop us,’ the holy fool said. ‘The way of the pious will not be impeded by those of scant faith!’
Cramer raised his laser, clicked off the safety catch.
Francesca was shaking her head. ‘No . . .’
His vision swam. A combination of the heat, the drink, the emotional consequences of what was happening conspired to addle his wits.
Francesca made to turn and go.
He reached out, caught her arm. The sudden feel of her, the hot flesh above her elbow, reminded Cramer of what he was losing. He pulled her to him. ‘Francesca . . .’
Her eyes communicated an anger close to hatred. She struggled. She was small, but the determination with which she fought was testament to her desire to be free. He was incensed. He roared like a maniac and dragged her across the clearing towards the tent. She screamed and broke free.
Then Cramer raised his laser and fired, hitting her in the chest and knocking her off her feet, the large-eyed expression of disbelief at what he’d done still on her face as she hit the ground.
The Abbot was on his knees beside her, his fingers fumbling for her pulse. He stared blindly in Cramer’s direction. ‘You’ve killed her! My God, you’ve killed her!’
‘No . . .’ He collapsed and held the loose bundle of Francesca in his arms. There was no movement, no heartbeat. Her head lolled. He cried into her hair that he had not meant to . . .
The Abbot began a doleful prayer for Cramer’s soul. Cramer wanted to hate him then, revile the holy man for infecting Francesca with his insane belief, but in his grief and guilt he could only weep and beg forgiveness.
At the Abbot’s suggestion Cramer buried Francesca in the rank jungle soil, while the night sky pulsed and flared with all the colours of Hell.
When it was done, and they stood above the fresh mound of earth, Cramer asked, ‘And you?’
‘I will continue on my quest.’
‘Without eyes?’
‘We walk by faith, not by sight,’ the Abbot said. ‘If God wishes me to find the shrine, that is his will.’
Cramer remained kneeling by the grave for hours, not quite sane. As the sun rose he set off on the long trek south, the Abbot’s dolorous chant following him into the jungle. He caught one of the many ferries bound for Baudelaire, and the following day bought passage aboard a slowboat to Earth.
He lost himself in Venezuela’s vast interior, relived his time with Francesca, wallowed in grief and guilt and cursed himself for her death.
Then, just short of four months later, the Abbot came to Earth with news from Tartarus Major.
* * * *
Cramer was sitting on the porch of his jungle retreat, the abandoned timber villa of some long-dead oil prospector. It was not yet noon and already his senses were numbed by alcohol. The encroaching jungle, the variation of greens and the odd splash of colour from bird or flower, reminded him of Tartarus - though the sky, what little of it could be seen through the tree-tops, was innocent of the baleful eye of the supernova.
The rattle of loose boards sounded through the humid air. His first visitor in four months approached along the walkway from the riverbank.
He sat up, fearful of trouble. He checked the pistol beneath the cushion at his side.
The walkway rose from the river in an erratic series of zigzags, and only when the caller negotiated the final turn could Cramer make him out. With his long sable habit and peaked hood he looked the very image of Death itself.
The boards were loose and treacherous. The Abbot had to tread with care, but not once did he reach for the side-rails - and only when he arrived at the verandah did Cramer realise why. The Abbot had had his arms removed since their last encounter.
To each his own mortification, Cramer thought. He hoisted his bottle in greeting.
‘What the hell brings you here?’ he asked. ‘You’ve finally abandoned your damn-fool quest?’
The holy man sat cross-legged before Cramer, a feat of some achievement considering the absence of his arms. He tipped his head back, and his cowl slipped from his bald pate to reveal his face ravaged by the depredations of his piety.
Cramer noted that his dried eyeballs were now fastened about his left ankle, bolas-like.
‘In two days I return to Tartarus,’ he said in his high, rasping voice. His stitched-shut eye-sockets faced Cramer’s approximate direction. ‘My quest is almost over.’
Cramer raised his drink. ‘You don’t know how pleased I am,’ he sneered. ‘But I thought no one knew the whereabouts of your precious shrine?’
‘Once, that was true,’ the Abbot said, unperturbed by Cramer’s rancour. ‘Explorers claimed they’d stumbled upon the alien temple, and then just as conveniently stumbled away again, unable to recall its precise location. But then two weeks ago a miracle occurred.’
Cramer took a long pull from the bottle and offered his guest a shot. The Abbot refused.
‘There is a pouch on a cord around my waist,’ he said. ‘Take it. Retrieve the items within.’
Cramer made out the small leather pouch, its neck puckered by a drawstring. He could not reach the Abbot from his seat. He was forced to kneel, coming into contact with the holy man’s peculiar body odour - part the stench of septic flesh, part the chemical reek of the analgesics that seeped from his every pore.
He opened the pouch and reached inside.
Three spherical objects met his fingertips, and he knew immediately what they were. One by one he withdrew the image apples. He did not immediately look into their depths. It was as if some precognition granted him the knowledge of what he was about to see. Only after long seconds did he raise the first apple to his eyes.
He gave an involuntary sob.
Image apples were not a fruit at all, but the exudations of an amber-like substance, clear as dew, from tropical palms native to Tartarus. Through a bizarre and unique process, the apples imprinted within themselves, at a certain stage in their growth, the image of their surroundings.
Bracing himself, Cramer looked into the first apple again, then the second and the third. Each crystal-clear orb contained a perfect representation of Francesca as she strode through the jungle, past the trees where the apples had grown.
The first apple had captured her full-length, a short, slim, childlike figure striding out, arms swinging - all radiation silvers and massed midnight hair. In the second apple she was closer; just her head and shoulders showed. Cramer stared at her elfin face, her high cheekbones and jade green eyes. Then the third apple: she was striding away from the tree, only her narrow back and fall of hair visible. Tears coursed down his cheeks.
He held the apples in cupped hands and shook his head. He was hardly able to find the words to thank the Abbot. Just the other day he had been bewailing the fact that he had but half a dozen pix of Francesca. That the holy man had come all the way to Earth to give him these . . .
‘I . . . Thank you. I don’t know what to say.’
Then Cramer stopped. Perhaps the whisky had clouded his senses. He stared at the Abbot.
‘How did you find these?’ he asked.
‘When you left,’ said the Abbot. ‘I continued north. At the time, if you recall, I was following directions given to me by a boatman on the river St Augustine. They proved fallacious, as ever, and rather than continue further north and risk losing my way, I retraced my steps, returned to the plateau where we had camped.’ He was silent for a time. Cramer was back on Tartarus Major, so graphically did the Abbot’s words conjure up the scene, so painful were his memories of the events upon the plateau.
‘When I reached the clearing, it occurred to me to pray for Francesca. I fell to my knees and felt for the totem I had planted to mark her resting place, only to find that it was not there. Moreover, I discovered that the piled earth of the grave had been disturbed, that the grave was indeed empty.’
Cramer tried to cry out loud, but no sound came.
‘In consternation I stumbled back to my tent. She was waiting for me.’
‘No!’
‘Yes. Francesca. She spoke to me, “Abbot, do not fear. Something wondrous has happened”.’
Cramer was shaking his head. ‘No, she was dead. Dead. I buried her with my own hands.’
‘Francesca lives,’ the Abbot insisted. ‘She told me that she knew the whereabouts of the holy temple. She would show me, if I did as she bid.’
‘Which was?’
He smiled, and the approximation of such a cheerful expression upon a face so devastated was ghastly to behold. ‘She wanted me to come to Earth and fetch you back to Tartarus. She gave me the image apples as proof.’
Cramer could only shake his head like something clockwork. ‘I don’t ... I can’t believe it.’
‘Look upon the images,’ he ordered.
Cramer held the baubles high. ‘But surely these are images of Francesca before I arrived on Tartarus, before her death?’
‘Look closely, man! See, she carries your laser, the one you left in your flight from the clearing.’
He stared again, disbelieving. He had overlooked it in the apples before, so slight a side-arm it was. But sure enough - strapped to Francesca’s thigh was the silver length of his personal pulse laser.
‘She wants you,’ the Abbot said in a whisper.
Cramer wept and raged. He hurled his empty whisky bottle through the air and into the jungle, which accepted it with hardly a pause in the cacophonous medley of insects, toads and birds.
‘But the sun might blow at any time,’ he cried.
‘Some experts say a month or two.’ The Abbot paused. ‘But vain and rapacious men still pilot illegal boats to Tartarus, to raid the treasures that remain. I leave the day after tomorrow. You will accompany me, I take it?’
Sobbing, unable to control himself, wracked with guilt and a fear he had no hope of understanding, Cramer said that he would indeed accompany the Abbot. How could he refuse?
And so began his return to Tartarus Major. He cursed the twisted machinations of fate. A little under four months ago he had set out on his first voyage to the planet, in a bid to find a Francesca he feared was surely dead - and, now, he left with the Abbot aboard a ramshackle sailship, its crew a gallery of rogues, to be reunited with a Francesca he knew for sure to be dead, but somehow miraculously risen . . .
He chose to spend the voyage under sedation.
* * * *
The first he knew of the landing was when the Abbot coaxed him awake with his croaking, cracking voice. Cramer emerged reluctantly from his slumber, recalling vague, nightmare visions of Francesca’s death - only to be confronted by another nightmare vision: the Abbot’s mutilated visage, staring down at him.
‘To your feet. Tartarus awaits.’
He gathered his scant belongings - six flasks of whisky, the image apples - and stumbled from the ship.
As he emerged into the terrible daylight, the assault of Tartarus upon his every sense seemed to sober him. He stared about like a man awakening from a dream, taking in the panorama of ancient wooden buildings around the port, their facades and steep, tiled roofs seeming warped by the intense heat.
Theirs was the only ship in sight, its silver superstructure an arrogant splash of colour against a sun-leached dun and ochre city. A searing wind soughed across the port, blowing hot grit into Cramer’s face. He gazed at the magnesium-bright sun that filled half the sky. The very atmosphere of the planet seemed to be on fire. The air was heavy with the stench of brimstone, and every breath was a labour.
The leader of the thieves stood beneath the nose-cone of the ship. ‘We set sail for Earth in two days,’ he said. ‘If you want passage back, be here at dawn. We’ll not be waiting.’
Cramer calculated how long it might take to reach the jungle plateau, and return - certainly longer than any two days. He trusted there would be other pirate boats to take him back to civilisation.
Already the Abbot was hurrying across the port, his armless gait made fastidious with concentration. His dried eyeballs scuffed around his ankles as he went, striking random patterns in the dust. Cramer shouldered his bag and followed.
Unerringly, the holy man led the way down narrow alleys between the tall timber buildings of the city’s ancient quarter. Just four months ago these byways had been thronged with citizens streaming to the port, eager to flee the impending catastrophe. Now they were deserted. The only sound was that of their footsteps, and the dry rasp of the Abbot’s eyeballs on the cobbles. Between the over-reaching eaves, the sky dazzled like superheated platinum. All was still, lifeless.
They descended to the banks of the St Augustine, its broad green girth flowing sluggishly between the rotten lumber of dilapidated wharves and jetties. The river, usually choked with trading vessels from all along the coast, was empty now; not one boat plied its length.
An urchin fell into step beside the Abbot and tugged at his robes. They came to a boathouse, and the Abbot shouldered open the door and stepped carefully aboard a long-boat. Cramer climbed in after him and seated himself on cushions beneath the black and scarlet awning. The Abbot sat forward, at the very prow of the launch, while the boy busied himself with the engine. Seconds later it spluttered into life, a blasphemy upon the former silence, and the boat surged from the open-ended boathouse and headed upriver, into the interior.
Cramer pulled a flask of whisky from his bag and chugged down three mouthfuls, the quantity he judged would keep him afloat until the serious drinking began at sunset. The Abbot had thought to provision the launch with a container of food: biltongs, rounds of ripe cheese, cobs of black bread and yellow, wizened fruit like pears. A goblet suggested that they should take from the river for their refreshment: Cramer decided to stick to his whisky. He ate his fill, lay back and closed his eyes as the boat bounced upstream. He must have dozed; when he next opened his eyes he saw that they had left the city far behind. Flat fields spread out on either hand; tall crops, perhaps green once, were scorched now the colour of straw beneath the merciless midday sun.
He thought of Francesca, considered the possibility of her resurrection, and somehow withheld his tears. To busy himself, to take his mind off what might lie ahead, he dipped the goblet into the river and carried it to where the Abbot was seated cross-legged at the prow like some proud and macabre figurehead.
He raised the brimming goblet to the holy man’s lips. Graciously, the Abbot inclined his head and drank thirstily. When the cup was dry, he murmured his thanks.
Cramer remained seated beside him. Already he was soaked with sweat and uncomfortable, and he wore the lightest of jungle wear. The Abbot was surely marinating within the thick hessian of his habit.
Cramer nodded to where his sleeves were tucked inside their shoulder holes. ‘Yet more penance since we last met,’ he observed, his tone sarcastic.
He wondered when the Abbot would have his tongue pulled out, his legs amputated, his testicles removed - if they had not been removed already.
‘After finding Francesca,’ the Abbot said, ‘I made my way back to Baudelaire. I informed the Church Council of the miracle in the jungle, and petitioned them for permission to undergo penance physicale. The following day the Surgeon Master removed my arms.’
Cramer let the silence stretch. He felt dizzy with the heat. The glare of the sun seemed to drive needles into his eyes. The boat changed course slightly and passed a sandbank. Dead birds and other bloated animals floated by.
‘And Francesca?’ Cramer whispered.
The Abbot turned his cowl to Cramer, suggesting inquiry.
Cramer cleared his throat. ‘Why does she want me with her?’
‘She did not say.’ The Abbot paused. ‘Perhaps she loves you, still.’
‘But what exactly did she tell you?’
‘She said that I was to bring you back to Tartarus. In return, she would guide me to the temple.’
Cramer shook his head. ‘How does she know its whereabouts? Months ago, like you, she had no idea.’
‘She was bequeathed its location in her sleep.’
He cried aloud. ‘In her sleep? Sleep? She was dead. I buried her myself.’ He was sobbing now. ‘How can she possibly be alive?’
The Abbot would say no more, no matter how much Cramer pleaded. He lowered his head, and his lips moved in soothing prayer.
Cramer took sanctuary beneath the awning. He sucked down half a flask of whisky as night failed, as ever, to fall. The bloated sun dipped below the flat horizon, but such was the power of its radiation that the night sky was transformed into a flickering canopy of indigo, scarlet and argent streamers. The light-show illuminated the entirety of the eastern sky, and against it the Abbot was a stark and frightening silhouette.
Cramer drank himself to sleep.
He was awoken by a crack of thunder such as he had never heard before. He shot upright, convinced that the sun had blown and that Tartarus had split asunder. Sheet lightning flooded the river and the surrounding flatlands in blinding silver explosions, a cooling breeze blew and a warm rain lashed the boat. He slept.
It was dawn when he next awoke. The sun was a massive, rising semi-circle on the horizon, throwing harsh white light across the land. They were slowly approaching a dense tangle of vegetation with leaves as broad as spinnakers, waxy and wilting in the increased temperature. The river narrowed, became a chocolate-coloured canal between the overgrown banks. While the sun was hidden partially by the treetops, and they were spared its direct heat, yet in the confines of the jungle the humidity increased so that every laboured inhalation was more a draught of fluid than a drawn breath.
Cramer breakfasted on stale bread and putrescent cheese, thirst driving him to forego his earlier circumspection as to the potability of the water, and draw a goblet from the river. He gave the Abbot a mouthful of the brackish liquid and arranged bread and biltongs beside him so that the holy fool might not starve. The Abbot ate, using his toes to grip the food and lift it to his mouth in a fashion so dextrous as to suggest much practice before the amputation of his arms.
They proceeded on a winding course along the river, ever farther into the dense and otherwise impenetrable jungle.
Hours later they came to Chardon’s Landing. Cramer made the launch fast to the jetty and assisted the Abbot ashore. They paused briefly to take a meal, and then began the arduous slog to the plateau where Cramer had buried Francesca.
* * * *
The air was heavy, the light aqueous, filled with the muffled, distant calls of doomed animals and birds. The trek to the plateau was tougher than he recalled from his first time this way. After months of drunkenness Cramer was in far from peak condition, and without his arms the Abbot often stumbled.
As the hours passed and they slogged through the cloying, hostile heat, Cramer considered what the holy man had said about Francesca’s resurrection. Clearly, he had not killed her in the clearing all those months ago, but merely stunned her - and she had discovered the whereabouts of the temple from the survey photographs made by the Pride of Valencia . . . Then again, there was always the possibility that the Abbot was lying, that Francesca had not risen at all, that he had lured Cramer here for his own sinister purposes. And the image apples, which seemed to show Francesca in possession of the laser which had killed her? Might she not have been carrying a laser similar to his own after the crash-landing and before he arrived, at which time the apples had recorded her image?
They came at last to the clearing. The two tents were as he recalled them, situated thirty metres apart. Francesca’s grave, in the jungle, was out of sight.
Cramer hurried across to Francesca’s tent and pulled back the flap. She was not inside. He checked the second tent, also empty, and then walked towards the edge of the escarpment. He looked out across the spread of the jungle far below, gathering his thoughts.
He knew that he would find Francesca’s grave untouched.
‘If you claim she is risen,’ he called to the Abbot, ‘then where is she?’
‘If you do not believe me,’ the Abbot said, ‘then look upon the grave.’
Cramer hesitated. He did not know what he feared most, that he should find the grave empty ... or the soil still piled above Francesca’s cold remains.
He crossed the clearing to the margin of jungle in which he had excavated her resting place. The Abbot’s cowl turned, following his progress like some gothic tracking device. Cramer reached out and drew aside a spray of ferns. The light fell from behind him, illuminating a raw furrow of earth. He gave a pained cry. The mound he had so carefully constructed was scattered, and only a shallow depression remained where he had laid out her body.
He stumbled back into the clearing.
‘Well?’ the Abbot inquired.
Before Cramer could grasp him, beat from him the truth, he saw something spread in the centre of the clearing. It was a detailed map of the area, based on aerial photographs, opened out and held flat by four stones.
The Abbot sensed something. ‘What is wrong?’
Cramer crossed the clearing and knelt before the map. Marked in red was the campsite, and from it a dotted trail leading down the precipitous fall of the escarpment. It wound through the jungle below, to a point Cramer judged to be ten kilometres distant. This area was marked with a circle, and beside it the words, ‘The Slarque Temple,’ in Francesca’s meticulous, childish print.
‘My God,’ Cramer whispered to himself.
‘What is it!’
Cramer told the Abbot, and he raised his ravaged face to the heavens. ‘Thanks be!’ he cried. ‘The Age of Miracles is forever here!’
Cramer snatched up the map, folded it to a manageable size, and strode to the edge of the escarpment. He turned to the Abbot. ‘Are you up to another hard slog?’
‘God gives strength to the pilgrim,’ the holy man almost shouted. ‘Lead the way, Mr Cramer!’
For the next two hours they made a slow descent of the incline. So steep was the drop in places that the Abbot was unable to negotiate the descent through the undergrowth, and Cramer was forced to carry him on his back.
He murmured holy mantras into Cramer’s ear.
He found it impossible to assess his emotions at that time, still less his thoughts - disbelief, perhaps, maybe even fear of the unknown. He entertained the vague hope that Francesca, having completed her quest and found the temple, might return with him to Earth.
They came to the foot of the incline and pressed ahead through dense vegetation. From time to time they came across what Cramer hoped was the track through the undergrowth that Francesca might have made, only to lose it again just as quickly. Their progress was slow, with frequent halts so that Cramer could consult the map and the position of the bloated sun. He wondered if it was a psychosomatic reaction to the events of the past few hours, or a meteorological change, that made the air almost impossible to breathe. It seemed sulphurous, infused with the miasma of Hell itself. Certainly, the Abbot was taking laboured breaths through his ruined nose-holes.
At last they emerged from the jungle and found themselves on the edge of a second great escarpment, where the land stepped down to yet another sweep of sultry jungle. Cramer studied the map. According to Francesca, the temple was positioned somewhere along this ledge. They turned right and pushed through fragrant leaves and hanging fronds. Cramer could see nothing that might resemble an alien construction.
Then, amid a tangle of undergrowth ten metres ahead, he made out a regular, right-angled shape he knew was not the work of nature. It was small, perhaps four metres high and two wide - a rectangular block of masonry overgrown with lichen and creepers. He detected signs that someone had passed this way, and recently: the undergrowth leading to the stone block was broken, trampled down.
‘What is it?’ the Abbot whispered.
Cramer described what he could see.
‘The shrine,’ the holy man said. ‘It has to be . . .’
They approached the Slarque temple. Cramer was overcome with a strange disappointment that it should turn out to be so small, so insignificant. Then, as they passed into its shadow, he realised that this was but a tiny part of a much greater, subterranean complex. He peered, and saw a series of steps disappearing into the gloom. Tendrils, like tripwires, had been broken on the upper steps.
Cramer took the Abbot’s shoulder and assisted him down the steps. Just as he began to fear that their way would be in complete darkness, he made out a glimmer of light below. The steps came to an end. A corridor ran off to the right, along the face of the escarpment. Let into the stone of the cliff-face itself, at regular intervals, were tall apertures like windows. Great shafts of sunlight poured in and illuminated the way.
He walked the Abbot along the wide corridor, its ceiling carved with a bas-relief fresco of cavorting animals. In the lichen carpet that had spread across the floor over the millennia, he made out more than one set of footprints: the lichen was scuffed and darkened, as if with the passage of many individuals.
At last, after perhaps a kilometre, they approached the tall, arched entrance of a great chamber. At first he thought it a trick of his ears, or the play of the warm wind within the chamber, but as they drew near he heard the dolorous monotone of a sustained religious chant. The sound, in precincts so ancient, sent a shiver down his spine.
They paused on the threshold. From a wide opening at the cliff-face end of the chamber, evening sunlight slanted in, its brightness blinding. When his eyes adapted Cramer saw, through a haze of tumbling dust motes, row upon row of grey-robed, kneeling figures, cowled heads bowed, chanting. The chamber was the size of a cathedral and the congregation filled the long stone pews on either side of a central aisle. The heat and the noise combined to make Cramer dizzy.
He felt a hand grip his elbow, and thought at first that it was the Abbot. He turned - a monk stood to his left, holding his upper arm; the Abbot was on Cramer’s right, his broken face suffused with devotional rapture.
He felt pressure on his elbow. Like an automaton, he stepped into the chamber. The monk escorted Cramer up the aisle. The continuous chanting, now that they were amidst it, was deafening. The sunlight was hot on his back. The front of the chamber was lost in shadow. He could just make out the hazy outline of a scorpion-analogue statue, and beside it the representation of a torso upon a cross.
Halfway down the aisle, they paused.
The monk’s grip tightened on his arm. The Abbot whispered to Cramer. His expression was beatific, his tone rapturous. ‘In the year of the supernova it is written that the Ultimate Sacrifice will rise from the dead, and so be marked out to appease the sun. Too, it is written that the sacrifice will be accompanied by a non-believer, and also the Abbot of the true Church.’
Cramer could hardly comprehend his words.
The monk pushed him forward. The chanting soared.
He stared. What he had assumed to be the statue of a body on a cross was not a statue at all. His mind refused to accept the image that his vision was relaying. He almost passed out. The monk held him upright.
Francesca hung before him, lashed to the vertical timber of the cross, the ultimate sacrifice in what must have been the most God-forsaken Calvary ever devised by man. Her head was raised at a proud angle, the expression on her full lips that of a grateful martyr. Her eyelids were closed, flattened like the Abbot’s, and stitched shut in a semicircle beneath each eye. The threads obtruded from her perfect skin, thick and clotted like obscene, cartoon lashes.
Her evicted eyes, as green as Cramer remembered them, were tied about her neck.
Her arms and legs had been removed, amputated at shoulder and hip; silver discs capped the stumps. They had even excised her small, high breasts, leaving perfect white, sickle-shaped scars across her olive skin.
Cramer murmured his beloved’s name.
She moved her head, and that tiny gesture, lending animation to something that by all rights should have been spared life, twisted a blade of anguish deep into his heart.
‘Hans!’ she said, her voice sweet and pure. ‘Hans, I told you that I loved you, would love you forever.’ She smiled, a smile of such beauty amid such devastation. ‘What greater love could I show you than to allow you to share in the salvation of the world? Through our sacrifice, Hans, we will be granted eternal life.’
He wanted, then, to scream at her - to ask how she could allow herself to believe in such perversion? But the time for such questioning was long gone.
And, besides, he knew . . . She had always sought something more than mere existence, and here, at last, she had found it.
‘Hans,’ she whispered now. ‘Hans, please tell me that you understand. Please hold me.’
Cramer stepped forward.
He felt the dart slam into the meat of his lower back. The plainsong crescendoed, becoming something beautiful and at the same time terrible, and he pitched forward and slipped into oblivion.
* * * *
He surfaced slowly through an ocean of analgesics. He found himself in darkness, something wet tied around his neck. With realisation came pain, and he cried aloud. Then, perhaps hours later, they laid him out again and put him under, and though he wanted to rage and scream at the injustice, the futility of what they were doing to him, all he could manage was a feeble moan of protest.
He came to his senses to find himself tied upright - to a cross? - with four points of numbness where his arms and legs had been. Beside him he could hear the Abbot, moaning in masochistic ecstasy. He considered what a gruesome trinity they must present upon the altar.
‘Francesca,’ he whispered. ‘Oh, Francesca, the pain . . .’
‘The pain, Hans,’ she replied, ‘the pain is part of the sacrifice.’
He laughed, and then wept, and then fell silent.
Francesca continued, her voice a whisper. She lovingly detailed what further sacrifices they would be called upon to make. Next, she said, would come the expert excision of their genitalia; after that they would be skinned alive. And then the Master Surgeon would remove their internal organs one by one: kidneys, liver, lungs, and finally their hearts, while all the time they were conscious of what was taking place, the better to appreciate their sacrifice.
‘Hans,’ she whispered. ‘Can you feel it? Can you? The wonder, the joy?’
He could feel nothing but pain, and lapsed into unconsciousness. He awoke from time to time, unable to tell how long he had spent in blessed oblivion, or what further surgical mutilations they had carried out upon his body.
What followed was a nightmare without respite. During the day, when the heat was at its most intense, they were lifted from the altar and set side by side in the opening of the cliff-face, while the congregation chanted their medieval, monotone chant in hope of miracles. The pain was constant, at its worst in the heat of the day, dulling to a tolerable agony during the night.
Towards the end, Cramer dreamed of rescue: he hallucinated the arrival of a pirate ship come to set them free. Then he came to his senses and realised that for him there would be no release, no return to physical well-being. He was a prisoner of Tartarus, a jail more secure than any of ancient myth.
On the very last day they were carried outside and positioned before the scalding light of the sun. Cramer sensed heightened activity among the monks, hurried movement and hushed conversation suggesting panic and disbelief. He felt the heat of the sun searing his flesh, and laughed aloud at the knowledge of his victory.
Francesca maintained her faith until the very end. In mounting fear she intoned: ‘And it is written that the Ultimate Sacrifice shall rise from the dead, and will guide the faithful to the lost temple of the Slarque, and through the sacrifice of the Holy Trinity the sun will cease its swelling . . .’
Cramer was torn between exacting revenge upon the person responsible for his torture and keeping the one he loved in ignorance. A part of him wanted to impose upon Francesca his rationalisation of what had happened, to explain that there had been no miracles at all.
He said nothing. If he were to make her comprehend the tragedy and evil of their predicament, the insane fanaticism of the accursed Church, he would only inflict upon her a greater torture than any she had suffered already.
The end came within the hour, and swiftly. He felt his flesh shrivel in the intense heat, and was aware of Francesca and the Abbot to his left and right. Francesca was murmuring a constant prayer, and the Abbot from time to time laughed in manic ecstasy.
All around them sounded the monks’ frantic chanting, the entreaties of the faithful to their oblivious God.
In rapture, Cramer heard the detonation of multiple thunder, and the roar of the approaching firestorm as the sun exploded and unleashed its terrible freight of radiation.
He turned his head. ‘Abbot!’ he whispered with his very last breath. ‘So much for your superstition! You bastards didn’t get my heart!’
The holy man could only laugh. ‘For our sacrifice,’ he began, ‘we will be granted life ever—’
Cramer should have known that the righteous would forever have the last word.
‘Hans!’ He heard the small voice to his left. She was crying, now. ‘Hans, please say you love me . . .’
But before he could speak, before he could accede to Francesca’s final wish, the blastfront reached the surface of Tartarus Major with a scream like that of a million souls denied, and Cramer gave thanks that his suffering was at a blessed end.
* * * *