Into the Great Darkness

by George H Y Watson

  I felt fear yet again at the thought of being near where there was an Infestation and the Navigator must have sensed it.

  “Don’t worry. We’ve always managed to lift off ok. Those bastards sometimes try and shoot us down but their technology is pretty primitive.”

  It was a long moment before what he was telling me sank in.

  “You, you infer that the so-called Infestation consists of sentient creatures?”

  “Not sentient like you and I, but they have a crude intelligence. Someone said they looked mammalian.”

  My mind was reeling. On the Agri planets everyone always thought of Infestations as some kind of plant killing disease that was easily destroyed by our Gardeners with their magic sprays.

  Then I thought of Adzarmer’s Photograph and felt, with increasing conviction, that the Honourable Growers had been purposely concealing important information! Lying, in other words!

  My confusion and distress was further added to as we descended over a brown area. To each side of our ship rose gargantuan canyon walls of some kind of prefabricated stone that appeared to contain small square openings!

  Openings for who or what?

  Eventually we slowed and approached the Farm that was in the centre of a flat plane covered in rubble. In the distance the fantastically tall purple fronds of successfully reared Agri vegetation waved in the alien wind.

  Quickly we landed and were herded hastily from our seats to disembark. I floated down the exit tube with my fellow passengers and noticed that the nearby refuelling crews moved at a frantic pace. I looked on in amazement at the gun emplacements built around the base perimeter, wondering why they were needed if a fortunate side effect of seeding was that dangerous life forms always died out. Later I would realise the ground around the Farm had been cleared purposely to give a clear field of fire against stray Infestations.

  As with all Agris the inputs from my eye-strip usually allowed me to receive visualization in every type of electromagnetic radiation possible but in this thin atmosphere, under the fierce alien sun the information received was strangely intense. It almost seemed as if the width of my spectrum had undergone a bandwidth extension, but to receive what?

  Floating across the open area to the terminal buildings my vision was drawn into the near distance where a magnificent tower stood, red with iron oxide. I detected that it was strongly built in a latticed wrought iron design and it came as a shock when at the limits of my spectroscopic vision, I detected faint ghostly shapes of small four-limbed mammals crowding around the base.

  “Can you see them?” I asked of my fellow Agris.

  “See who?” replied a Soldier-Agri, not at all pleased to be on this dangerous planet.

  Several others looked at me and more than a few enquired if I was feeling well.

  I decided to be quiet as we entered the Farm building where the Security Marshall, Zinco IV, was waiting for me.

  “Greetings Quembeen VI, it is an unexpected honour to have another Security Marshall visit our troubled corner of the empire.”

  ‘Troubled!’ I thought, ‘what an understatement!’ knowing then that there was more going on than I knew.

  “Happy farming, Zinco IV. A pleasure.”

  “How can we help you?”

  I moved closer until our eye-strips touched, ensuring that no one else could then hear our communication.

  “I’m following the steps of the late Honourable Grower Azdarma, on his apparently, numerous visits to this location.”

  Zinco IV floated up a little, trying to suppress his delight, “Adzarmer is dead? Oh dear! What a shame!”

  I was a little taken aback by Zinco’s irreverence, but from what I had experienced of the Honourable Growers lately, they must have also infuriated many lesser Agris with their arrogance. “Let’s go somewhere more private.”

  In his office the air pressure was comfortably high as we hovered in front of his control panel where large 3D monitors showing outside of the Farms’ perimeter.

  “Adzarma wasn’t the only Honourable Grower to visit. All of them have been at least once, Prime Grower Zander II, more than anyone!”

  “They never mentioned this to me when I interviewed them! Why would they come here of all places, a second grade planet with a severe and very dangerous Infestation problem?”

  Zinco IV had no answer for me and opened a 3D model of the area surrounding the Farm. In the centre was the beguiling red tower that I had seen earlier. Past the tower ran a brackish dark stream of free water! How Incredible, I thought as I traced its winding path to where my host pointed.

  “Tell me Quembeen, do you believe that it is possible for another sentient race to exist in direct contravention of Agri orthodoxy?”

  From practice, I was very careful how I answered. Many a career had been ruined by talk of such blasphemy, “I don’t know what to say.”

  He laughed at my conservative response and continued pointing to the display, “Here you will find a large four sided pyramid of glass built by our Infestations. It is a fragile structure every bit as fascinating as the green tower and how it is still in one piece is a miracle!”

  He imparted amusement as he added, “They were and are very clever, our Infestations!”

  “Is this where the Honourable Growers go?”

  “Yes it is and every time I’ve seen a Grower go in there, all puffed up with self importance, he comes out badly shaken and has to be helped back to this base. A few were so frightened that they went back to Agri Prime as soon as a flight was available. Try as I did, they all stayed quiet and wouldn’t tell anyone what they had seen.”

  “Do you know what is it they experience?”

  “Don’t know and I don’t want to know, all I’m concerned about is guarding this Farm. It’s dangerous to go poking around in those ruins; there have been regular reports of sightings of wild Infestations! That’s why the Honourables generally take their bodyguards with them. I assume that you’re here to see whatever it is that they’ve been doing?”

  “Can you help with that?”

  “There’s an unscheduled landing of a military ship due in an hour, so I can’t come with you or spare any guards, but I can turn a blind eye-strip and let you have one of the auto cars that will take you right to the entrance. It’s early in the day so there shouldn’t be any wild Infestations about, yet.”

  I shuddered, “Yet!”

  I floated from the auto car and for the first time I was alone on the savage alien world. The strange yellow sun shone with a raw heat whilst the alien wind full of the strange smells of a lost civilisation, moved over me. My external film rippled with my excitement and fear. Near me was a slight incline that would take me under the sea of rubble into the darkness below where the Honourable Growers had been.

  Looking to the west the strange iron tower was closer than ever, still surrounded by the life force traces of long dead Infestations. So strong were the strange radiations that the wind brought the word ‘Eiffel’ to me.

  Down the ramp I went and as soon as I entered I could feel the pull of a strange entity in the gloom where the Honourable Growers had preceded me. I was drawn in through many ancient passageways amongst dust, debris and groups of the strange supporting structures that the Infestations had used to hold their primitive bodies erect. Skeletons and bones they were called.

  On the many walls of the numerous rooms I glimpsed incredibly old artefacts, most deteriorated beyond credible form by many years and the terrible weather conditions that seeped in from the outside. The pull of the alien artefact, for that was all I could imagine it could possibly be grew stronger and stronger until finally, deep within the underground complex I was nearly overwhelmed.

  With great self control I took stock of my surroundings. I had entered a square room and was amazed to behold the roof that was a square pyramid made of many individual panes of glass. The alien sun shone down, warming and drying the room where on one wall the two dimensional representation of an Infestation star
ed back at me, insolently daring me to come closer so it could steal my Agri soul!

  It was overpowering and irresistible!

  My eye strip spun and spun now at increasing speed and I could not stop myself moving closer as I came under the spell of the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, before or since.

  The artefact was a mixture of primitive oils and pigments from the actual earth of the planet and painted upon a wooden board. As I drew nearer more data than I could cope with blasted into my brain and nervous systems!

  To begin with I could faintly sense the life of its creator, a strangely gifted Infestation from a distant part of the planet called Florence. Leonardo was his name and the female he was painting was called something like ‘Mona Lisa Gherardini’. So immersed I became that I thought I was actually in his studio! I looked through the tall open window onto ancient Italy and could in fact see and hear the raucous shouts of the primitive Infestations in the narrow streets below and I could even smell the appalling stinking river nearby! At the same time there was the nearer and more pleasant smell of oil paint mixed with the perfume of My Lady Gherardini.

  I then realised that I actually was in the body of the creature Leonardo and I experienced what it was to be an Infestation, no a Human they call themselves! It was incredible for me, a gelatinous life form to experience what it was to be a mammal! Their lives were so short, but they experienced so much incredibly vivid pain and love. It was astonishing!

  Leonardo and his life faded but through the films of age that overlaid this work of art I then followed the life force of many ancient humans, finally understanding the significance of this painting from the Earth year 1513. I saw it arrive in Paris in 1797 where it mostly stayed until the advent of the Germanic invaders. I experienced more human lives than I thought I could endure complete with their hopes and then abject wretchedness right until the moment that the Louvre was closed then abandoned during the first seeding by the Agri starships.

  I was appalled when I finally realised the scale of death and destruction wrought by we, the Agri race and the monumental egotism that drove us!

  Suddenly it was as if I had been released from a vice. The ‘pull’ of the artefact had disappeared because it had told me its human tale of hope and sorrow and revealed the falsehood on which the Agri Empire and civilisation was built!

  The beautiful woman stared past me and into the destroyed civilization. She had done this for over two hundred years since the Agri arrived, yet with that hint of what could have been a smile. The smile that began to beguile me as it had so many others, Human and Agri.

  Suddenly I felt a presence behind me and for a moment I feared I was being stalked by an Infestation. Whirling around, stingers ready I was confronted by none other than Prime Grower Zander II newly arrived on a military shuttle. Behind him hovered a platoon of his personal guards carrying the mechanical pellet rifles that were so effective on this world.

  “Quembeen! You are really unique! Your viewing of the Mona Lisa lasted longer than any of the Honourable Growers could manage, myself included! But what a shame you wouldn’t do as you were told though! Just like Adzarmer.”

  “You had him killed?”

  “I killed him myself!”

  For a moment I foolishly thought it would be possible to actually arrest Zander II until his guards raised the barrels of their weapons in my direction.

  The Prime Grower floated over into one of the shadows and came back holding a crumbling wooden box that he threw in front of me. The dry wood exploded into dust and six or seven metal grenades rolled about.

  “I used one of these.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Adzarmer was going to tell.”

  I thought I knew all of the relevant facts, “Tell about the strange artefacts from this planet that can fry an Agri’s brain or more importantly that we, the Agris are not the only sentient race in the galaxy? That you and your murderous elite have told the ultimate lie for hundreds of years?”

  Zander II laughed, “No you fool! The wonderful artefacts are only for us, the select elite Agris to enjoy! As for the question of sentient races, you’ll find that nobody really cares as long as they can feed!”

  Crestfallen, I knew he spoke the truth regarding feeding that was always uppermost in the Agri mind, “Then why murder Adzarmer?”

  The humour disappeared from Zander II, “He was going to tell the tetra billions of Agris, that for the first time in our long history we have to retreat from a Seeder world. I would be blamed for this appalling failure and would be driven from the Palace of the Honourable Growers by The Mob and devoured by it during the resultant feeding frenzy!”

  Selfish self preservation was what drove the so called ‘Honourable Growers’, then.

  “With the assistance of the other Honourable Growers we will quietly withdraw from this planet that the Infestations call Earth and not inform our populace. This information would cause widespread panic, culture shock and would be the beginning of the end of the Agri Empire!”

  At that moment I realised with, for me, an uncharacteristically accurate flash of perception that this was indeed another lie by the Honourable Growers; the beginning of the end of the empire was already here and Zander II and his eleven Honourable cronies also knew it! It would not happen quickly but the limit of expansion of the Empire had been reached. Bypassing this planet and leaving an enemy to fester behind us was not viable and the religion of The Great Maker was so entrenched amongst the populace that it would not allow us to disinfect the planet, in effect to make it permanently barren.

  Disrespectfully I asked, “So what are you going to do with me? Use one of these grenades you’re so fond of?”

  The Prime Grower was instantly and cruelly amused, “No my inquisitive Marshall, something more appropriate!”

  I watch the dark Earth clouds race by in the night sky, propelled by a blustery wind. The native atmosphere and weather are returning to normal as the Agri crops decay. From my vantage point on the tenth floor of a fairly intact structure, I can see in the distance the long abandoned Agri Farm where I arrived so long ago to meet Zinco IV. Most nights it is illuminated by the lights of the Infestations as they toil earnestly to unlock the technological secrets it holds, secrets the conceited Honourable Growers didn’t even think the humans could understand, never mind use!

  The Infestations know I’m here and alone but leave me be as I present no threat. I’ve made my accommodation comfortable and it’s a short distance to the roof for when I wish to observe or float down to ground level to feed on the sparse native plants. Several times I’ve parachuted down and unintentionally landed amongst the creatures, but come to no harm.

  My enhanced eye-strip picks up so much information from the mammals that it’s almost like knowing what they’re going to do before they know it themselves! I have digested so much data from them that I’m sure that their future destiny that I have extrapolated, is the true one; they’ll get back into space relatively quickly using Agri technology as a model and their first priority will be to eradicate ‘the Jellies’ as they call us.

  And they’ll succeed.

  Some days when the wind is not too strong and the sun does not blaze down to burn me, I go to visit her, appreciate her beauty, talk to her, hoping again to experience the lives of the long lost humans. But she just looks back at me, smiling.

  Always smiling.

  BREAKOUT

  “Attention you miserable miscreants!” screamed the Overseer at the hundred or so Agris crowded into the small passenger compartment of the Department of Corrections space shuttle, “and don’t start moaning. It’s your own fault you’re here!”

  Magenta 183 wanted very much to scream in frustration. It hadn’t been her fault that she had entered a sleep period whilst on duty on AgriPrime 3700. About a million litres of food protein had overflowed the vats that she was responsible for and disappeared down the numerous drains. She sighed, knowing that she had actually been lucky, escaping
execution. These days the population of the empire wasn’t what it used to be and consequently the strict rules were relaxed. Her train of thought was interrupted as the Overseer continued, “By Executive Order of The Council of Honourable Growers, AgriPrime 3700, you are each to serve a sentence of not less than one Agri year as a Monitoring Satellite Custodian. Disembarkation onto the first satellite will begin shortly.”

  The assembled ‘miscreants’ nevertheless moaned in unison. After their sentencing they’d all learned that the satellites that they were destined for had been placed around some useless blue planet, supposedly to monitor the Infestations that lived on it. ‘But what’s the point?’ they asked each other. As far as they knew nothing had happened down there for hundreds of years. Once upon a time, long ago, the blue planet had been a legend of terror for Agris, and not without good reason. But now, no longer at the Empires edge the once dreaded Blue Planet of legend hung in unoccupied space near the galactic rim. As a consequence the Monitoring Satellites were not well maintained, not all systems functioning and generally were uncomfortable to live in. Indeed several were actually condemned as dangerous and shut down, circling the planet below like the geo-synchronise junk they were. In other words they were ideal for the purpose of incarcerating minor miscreants who would eventually be glad to leave and be very reluctant to return.

  Magenta glanced at the overhead screen at an ugly marginal planet nearly completely covered in water. ‘For the Makers sake! I deserve better than this!’

  She had strict duty hours that were supposedly monitored from Agriprime, but everyone knew that the main data transmission satellite that monitored all the feeds from these slave satellites had hardware problems. Magenta’s punishment was that there wasn’t much to do except check the instruments that observed the planet below. What they were looking for hadn’t been actually spelt out. “Just check this gauge, Methane level” she had been told, “and this one ‘Ambient surface temp.’” And many other things too boring to remember! There had been rumours amongst her companions about looking out for Infestations but she shrugged that off because it was the stuff to frighten younglings at sleep time.