by Tara Basi
“Hunters, run, run,” Stuff squealed as he pulled Battery Boy away from the top of the slope and back into the dark.
The old fear of the hunters mixed with the new dread of their surroundings refuelled the runaways’ bodies and they ran quicker, desperately, away from the light, moving further into the darkness under the Block. Running on Battery Boy started to think somewhere further in would be supporting structures, pillars, foundations that they just couldn’t see yet. That had to be it.
Half a kilometre under the Block it was getting too dark to see anything much ahead. Battery Boy dug out the old-boy’s torch and switched it on. Five minutes later he stopped again, looked back and saw four bobbing lights following in the darkness. The hunters’ lights were easy to spot; the only other illumination was an ever-thinning line of grey morning light that filtered under the Block edge. The slither of brightness extended to the left and right as far as Battery Boy could see, like a crack of light squeezing under a door. Any second now Battery Boy expected the hunters would give up and turn back, they must be just as frightened of this crazy place, but the lights kept bobbing forward.
Faster, deeper into the dark the boys ran. Stuff’s breathing was getting ever more ragged, Battery Boy’s muscles were giving in to the pain and the knife in his side dug deeper. He knew the hunters would soon catch them; he reached into the canvas bag and pulled out the loaded gun. Pushing himself and Stuff to a final spurt of speed he searched ahead for a boulder offering cover. A likely candidate loomed abruptly out of the dark. Switching off the torch Battery Boy flung himself behind the rock. Stuff collapsed next to him in a rasping heap, fighting to keep his lungs from jumping out of his mouth.
In complete darkness, huddled behind the boulder, Battery Boy tried to control his breathing and turned to stare back at the rapidly approaching hunters. He could see four lights dancing in the darkness above the white sliver of the Block edge, no more than two minutes behind them. Remembering what the book had said Battery Boy raised the gun and pointing it in the general direction of one of the fast approaching points of light, he fired. There was a gentle whoosh, and a second later the small light erupted in a ball of flame and a roar. Before the sound faded away Battery Boy was already targeting the second light and then the third. Each erupted in another short-lived ball of flame and low waves of thunder swept over the runaways. Then the dark reclaimed the space.
He’d fired only three times, and four lights had gone out. The book had said the gun was clever but not that clever. Battery Boy was sure one of the hunters was still out there, his light turned off. Maybe now the last hunter would head back and leave them alone. Stuff was trying to ask a million questions. Battery Boy clamped his hand across Stuff’s mouth and quickly tied one end of the rope he always carried around his waist to Stuff’s wrist. He started crawling forward as quietly as fear allowed, feeling his way in the darkness, searching for a new, deeper spot of blindness. After snaking two hundred metres on their bellies they stopped and listened; there was nothing. The faint ribbon of the edge was fading fast and with it any sense of direction. Without switching on the torch he could easily end up falling down a gaping chasm or spiral back towards the hunter. Battery Boy kneeled and strained every sense, if the last hunter was still out there he’d know it. Nothing, the last hunter had gone.
Suddenly a blinding light exploded in his face, a glinting blade stabbed towards him and Stuff was kicked in the head and sent sprawling. It all happened in a split second. No time to think, up came the gun pointing right into the face of the last hunter, who froze, slowly sinking to his knees looking confused but smiling dangerously.
“Kill him, kill the bastard, smash his head,” screamed the recovering Stuff shining a trembling torch on the scene.
“Shut up, throw me his torch, tie him up, do it right,” Battery Boy ordered, keeping his full attention on the hunter and wondering when the pain from the knife would come.
After the hunter was secured he could afford to look down. The knife had glanced off the miniature Block in the bag. Battery Boy was lucky, the hunter wasn’t.
The last hunter was not the biggest old-boy he’d ever seen but he had a frightening presence. Imposing height, broad shoulders, thick neck and beefy arms helped, but it was his eyes that were really scary. Looking out from a fleshy face and framed in a dark halo of long brown hair, the eyes were one-way mirrors. His irises and pupils were as cold and impassive as glass marbles shot through with streaks of grey and green.
“Why?” Battery Boy asked knowing there was the obvious answer but that didn’t apply this close to the Block.
“We was after the old-boy you killed, and his bag. Is that gun what killed three of my boys?” The hunter spoke calmly looking straight at the gun.
“Yeah,” Battery Boy replied with a tinge of pride, thinking it better the hunter believed they had killed the old-boy.
“Cool. So, how’d you know about this, underneath?” he responded flicking his eyes up towards the Block.
“Just kill him, why we talking,” Stuff gasped in frustration.
“Makes no difference to me what you do, I’m already dead,” the hunter looked from Battery Boy to Stuff. “This beautiful Band of mine is taking off my head in about twenty minutes. I just wanted to feel you dead before that happened,” the hunter explained calmly.
“You should’ve turned back sooner,” Battery Boy replied.
“Eighteen next week. Offer was two more years if I got the bag, or dead right away if I didn’t,” the hunter explained in a matter of fact tone.
“Great, leave him, let’s go back, anywhere else,” Stuff excitedly suggested.
“What’s special about the old-boy’s bag?” Battery Boy asked trying to work out how much the hunter knew.
The hunter shrugged and said, “Band orders.”
“I found a map, it’ll take us somewhere you can live as long as you want,” Battery Boy replied in answer to the hunter’s question about the underneath, realising for the first time that the underneath might be the darkness described in the map.
“Good luck with that. Your skinny friend is probably right, just leave me and piss off,” the hunter responded.
“Come with us,” Battery Boy found himself saying, realising this hunter could be an asset if he stopped trying to kill them.
“Are your brains mush, I’m not joining anybody, didn’t you hear me? In minutes my head isn’t even going to be joined to my body,” the hunter snarled.
“What do you mean take him with us, he’s scum, he’ll cut our throats the first time we fall asleep,” Stuff screamed before Battery Boy could say anything.
“The book says Bands don’t work here but… as soon as you leave,” Battery Boy said, running a finger across his throat.
“Really? But your hysterical midget could be right and I’ll still kill you anyway, just out of habit,” the hunter replied without emotion.
“You read?” Battery Boy asked.
“What for?” the hunter answered.
“I do and I’ve got a book with a map. Think you’ll get anywhere down here without a map? And I’ve got a compass. So don’t forget who’s boss,” Battery Boy answered.
“Compass? Sure… Mr Boss.” the hunter sarcastically responded and smiled.
“What’s your name?” Battery Boy asked.
“Jugger,” the hunter replied, making it sound like the worst kind of curse.
“Well, Jugger, I reckon your twenty minutes are nearly up. We’ll see,” Battery Boy said, keeping his gun on the hunter.
Jugger grinned, folded his arms across his chest, and stared directly at Battery Boy.
Stuff made disgruntled noises but didn’t say anything. The runaways stepped back a few paces and waited quietly to see if the book was right or if the Band would take Jugger’s head off.
Chapter 2 – Waking Up To Trouble
Mina opened her eyes and smiled; escaping her loathsome crew mates was only a week away. Before even thinking about lo
osening the holding straps and floating up, this was a glorious moment she was going to relish.
It wasn’t just the crew she’d grown to hate, it was the ship as well. The once shiny interior of the UN22 Small Business had turned grimy. Every exposed surface was covered in a nauseating waxy coat of unconscious human excretions. The originally pristine white surfaces now had a pale yellow sheen. It was as though the crew had spent the entire voyage chain smoking. Not surprising really, considering that nothing was wasted, everything was recycled, everything. Mina could not ignore the reality that the water she drank had already passed through every other member of the crew, more than once. Humans couldn’t help shedding and there was nowhere for it to go. Everything just drifted around before settling on the slightly sticky yellowing surfaces of their habitat. Before that it contributed to a kind of misty cabin haze that seemed to get ever so slightly thicker as the years went by. Or maybe she imagined it all?
Now she was actually looking forward to seeing the others for the comparatively minuscule amount of time that remained before they disembarked. Just seven more days to go. As her attention returned to getting up, her smile faded; where was everyone, why was it so quiet?
Mina quickly made her way to the galley, her sticky slippers making the horribly familiar tearing sound she’d grown to hate. Huddled around the central table were her four crew mates, a sorry looking bunch swaying gently like strands of seaweed; and someone else, a stranger? How was that possible? They were on a small prototype research ship that had been out in space for years?
“Mina,” Commander Cole said looking directly at her, “there’s a problem.”
As always, Cole looked the strict headmaster, his stiff skinny body neatly uniformed. Thankfully, the irritatingly banal smile he usually wore was gone. It had been replaced by a puzzling absence of expression as though he could not find the right emotion for the occasion.
“What problem? Who’s he?” she asked pointed at the stranger. Had they docked, where’d he come from? “And, you’re all dressed.” Mina said, puzzled that everyone else was already out of their complicated cold-sleep gear. How long had they been awake? What had she missed?
“Lieutenant Grain, this is Mina, our systems specialist,” Commander Cole said.
“Ma’am,” Lieutenant Grain said, still looking dazed.
“Where’d he come from, what the hell’s going on?”
“He’s always been on board, him and four of his squad. Testing the effects of long term deep freeze.”
“What?”
“It was classified,” Cole explained, “they were going to be defrosted when we got back.”
“Are we back?” Mina asked, getting more confused and frustrated the longer the conversation went on.
Grain, the model man was very tall, with the V build of a champion swimmer. His confused expression couldn’t disguise his beautifully sculptured features, sensual mouth, long lashed brown eyes and thick mop of swirling autumn coloured hair that danced slowly around his head. Mina took an instant dislike to the stranger and his too-good looks.
“Trinity woke me up a week ago, I’ve been waking the others as needed, you’re the last,” Cole explained.
Mina was too surprised to be insulted.
“Trinity woke you up early? Aren’t we back? Where are we?” she shouted at Cole, getting angrier the longer the crazy conversation went on.
“Oh, we’re back alright,” Sara said before Cole could answer.
Only Sara, the ship’s chief scientist, rivalled the stranger for obvious physical fitness, though not for looks. Sara was short, broad shouldered and squat. She had a too-wide face, a flat nose, small eyes and pinched mouth, as though someone had smacked her in the face with the back of a shovel. Her long blond hair was tightly braided and wound into a fat unattractive bun on top of her head. Of all of them Sara was always the most business like, but now even she looked rattled.
“So, what’s the problem?” Mina asked calmly, trying to control a growing frustration.
“There’s no one home.” Doug, the ship’s engineer, answered quietly.
“But we have visitors,” Greg, added sadly.
Greg and Doug looked their usual dishevelled pot-bellied selves; they were gone to seed academics with little in the way of charisma. Chief engineer Doug was slightly taller than Greg and not completely up himself. He could take a joke when he was not being depressed. In the last few years Greg, the ship’s planetary specialist, had annoyingly found religion and in a loud way. He’d also lost any sense of humour, or so Mina thought.
“No one home, visitors, what the hell’s going on?” Mina demanded.
The crew were carefully selected for their psychological compatibility. That bit had worked. No one had actually ripped the still beating hearts out of their karma compatible crew mates, despite the endlessly imagined provocations. Or, to be perfectly accurate, it hadn’t happened so far. Mina felt her temper rising again.
“Mission control abruptly stopped transmitting about twenty-five years ago Earth time. Nothing we could do about it so Trinity left us sleeping, until last week,” Cole explained.
For every year of the voyage, ten had passed on Earth; a century had gone by during their decade long journey. Six of those ship years had been spent in deep freeze, three on the outward leg and three on the way home. For the four years in between the crew had explored a star and its six planets while the Small Business slowly refuelled for the return journey. Home for the last ten years had been the middle third of a hundred metre diameter sphere. It all seemed awfully spacious at the beginning with individual sleeping pouches, a big bathroom area, galley, individual work benches and a separate exercise space equipped with what Mina had christened, “full body torture capsules”. Everyone spent four hours a day in the horrible exercise machines to stop muscle and bone turning to slush in zero gravity. Despite the pain, Mina actually looked forward to her four hours of agony, with privacy, in the muscle wringers.
Otherwise the only fun had been the exploring bit. The science and their individual projects were the only escape from each other and the tedium of chores.
“It’s probably just a glitch, something wrong with the receiver,” Mina suggested, without much confidence, knowing they’d probably already tested all the obvious possibilities.
“It’s not just mission control, there’s nothing, no signals from anywhere. Earth, Mars, the Moon,” Cole continued ignoring Mina’s suggestion.
Mina could not imagine a future Earth where every form of communication they understood had become totally obsolete. She couldn’t think of anything that would explain such a universal hush.
“And then there’s the visitors,” Greg added.
“You tell her,” Cole prompted, looking tired and drawn.
“Earth’s actually in great shape, extremely low levels of pollution. That’s the good news,” Greg said and then paused as if gathering his strength to continue.
“And… the bad news?” Mina asked, guessing it was going to be very bad indeed.
“All the major cities seem intact, but dead silent, empty as far as we can tell. Lots of small towns are in ruins, no sign of people, anywhere. Doesn’t make any sense,” Greg continued, slowly, quietly.
“Nobody?” Mina asked in a whisper.
“No signs we can see from up here,” Doug added.
“Then there’s these… things. They’re just… sitting on the surface. Five thousand square kilometres of symmetrical perfection,” Greg continued sounding in awe of what he was describing.
“Five thousand square kilometres? That’s twice the size of Tokyo? What things?” Mina asked getting more and more apprehensive.
“Oblongs. Grey boxes.” Greg shrugged. “Each is roughly fifty by a hundred kilometres and they’re… twenty-three kilometres high,” Greg added almost as if he didn’t believe what he was saying.
“That’s not possible, nothing could be that big. Where are they?” Mina pressed wanting to know despite fe
eling none of it could be true.
“There are thirteen, spread across the continents, in flatlands, deserts,” Greg explained.
“Thirteen, what are they doing?” Mina gasped in shock.
“Mostly nothing, they’re electrically and magnetically dead. If anybody’s inside they’re not communicating,” Doug added.
“Mostly?” Mina questioned.
“Regular as clockwork, as the sun rises over each oblong a little oblong, same proportions but about a thousandth of the size, lands on the top, at the west end and disappears inside. At exactly the same time its twin appears at the east end and leaves. At sunset it all happens again. All of the blocky ships fly to and from the same point, just inside the orbit of the Moon, and vanish completely or just appear, out of the vacuum,” Doug continued, a question in his voice as if he didn’t believe what he was saying.
Mina looked around at the others. They’d all heard this before, but they still looked confused, angry or frightened.
“What are we going to do,” Mina asked in a daze, still struggling to switch from a happy homecoming to there being no one home.
Cole looked directly at Mina, “That’s the problem, before we can do anything we have to get off the Small Business. Doug will explain.”
The conversation continued for a while longer but it was all bad news.
The problem was simply stated; the Small Business had no lifeboats, and would disintegrate if it entered any kind of atmosphere. Mission control would have directed them to a space station to dock and then a shuttle back to earth. There was no mission control, though there was a space station, called the Maxinquaye, but it was lifeless. As Doug coldly explained they had to find a way of getting off the ship or they would all be looking at three years of existence on a starvation diet and then starvation. The answer lay in finding a way to kick start the space station, docking and then… having the luxury of considering their next step. Cole wanted Mina and Doug to find a solution. Meanwhile, Commander Cole decided they would keep quiet about their arrival and just listen.