Mantivore Prey

by S. J. Higbee

  “Why aren’t we moving?” demanded Ellern, all Uppie haughtiness.

  “Given we can’t go live, due to the paucity of the Nodery performance, His Lordship’s publicity director has decided that it would be a nice touch if the villagers all flood into the Square when they realise their beloved Kyrillia Brarian Overlord is about to make an important announcement,” sad the captain, who I didn’t know.

  Ellern uttered an unladylike curse. “You!” she snapped at the nearest guard. “Go and tell His Lordship to pick up the pace. I don’t know how much longer I’ll have control of her.”

  He didn’t even look at his captain. Just nodded and trotted off.

  So the chain of command is fraying. Can I use that? Then all such thoughts fled as I caught sight of Seth, standing at the opposite side of the square. He was surrounded by auto-cams and flanked by several hefty guards, stationed so they wouldn’t appear in the film being made.

  Off to the side, were a row of chairs. Seated in those chairs were Ajene Stitcher, Kestor Brarian, Onice Keeper and a very battered-looking Demri Peaceman, who clearly hadn’t come along peacefully. Along with some five wide-eyed, terrified children belonging to the Summer and Field families. Behind them were a row of soldiers with their weapons pointing at the hostages.

  Ellern gripped my shoulders, drawing me to her, as I put my hand to my mouth, horrified realisation pouring through me, while an auto-cam just above us filmed my reaction.

  I pulled away, focusing on Seth. His left eye was swollen and half-shut and a nasty bruise was ripening across his high forehead. My hands clenched into fists. Someone punched him!

  He was reciting a prepared speech scrolling across an auto-cue hovering in front of him. “…truly sorry for any pain I’ve caused her. My warped passion meant that I schemed, planned and wormed my unworthy way into her affections in any underhand way I could. I persuaded her to go on the run, so I could further trick her into agreeing to pretend to be my wife.”

  Clete was standing on a small rise, framed by the entrance to the only building in the village with any pretensions to grandness, the Meeting House. His expression was openly gloating, before his secretary whispered something to him and he rearranged his features to frowning disgust.

  Seth continued, “And now I realise her true feelings for Clete Gator, I have to do the honourable thing and announce that our marriage is a sham so that she can have a chance at real happiness.” His gaze slid away from the cam buzzing inches from his nose and rested on me, clearly worried.

  I gave a tiny nod, watching one of his micro-smiles light up his face. Such a lovely face, even when battered. He looks like one of those ancient warriors that Uncle Osmar used to read about.

  He went on reading, “Obviously having perpetrated such a fraudulent trick on both the Brarian Overlord and those closest to her, I realise I am unfit for any type of public office and rescind my seat on The Council with heartfelt apologies for having brought the institution into such disrepute by my presence…”

  Clete is determined to undercut all our political support, the roacher!

  “…I now hand myself over to the authorities for the appropriate punishment I so richly deserve. And may God have mercy on my soul.” He paused. “I would also like to apologise for my appearance. In no way have I been mishandled, I was punched in the face by a couple of nemmets during last night’s battle.”

  Ellern murmured in my ear, “You now call to Clete and thank him for rescuing you.”

  I forced my lips into a smile. “Thank you, Clete, for rescuing me,” I said, into the building heat shimmering across the square.

  Clete looked across at me, smugly triumphant.

  Glad that my goggles shielded my eyes so he couldn’t see my glaring hatred, I quickly continued, “There’s just one favour I’d like to ask.”

  Ellern’s grasp tightened. “Careful, lamb. I’d hate to have to punish you.”

  “Seth Priest never in any way harmed me. I’d like to plead for clemency for him.”

  “He has committed several capital offences,” said Clete, rubbing his chin in pretended perplexity. “I’m not sure if I can—”

  “I’m the Brarian Overlord and I would plead for his life on the grounds that he saved mine several times over,” I said. Don’t you start talking as if you’re running the planet. Because you’re not. Not yet.

  Clete sighed and shook his head. “You’re still clearly under his poisonous Priestly mesmerising influence. I’ve been advised that his death will be the only way you’ll be free of his brainwashing.” He paused. “Or a voluntary MindTrawl on your part.”

  So that’s the deal, is it? I let you rummage around in my head for the Codes in return for Seth’s life. Though I knew in my heart Clete wouldn’t keep his part of any bargain that left Seth upright and breathing. I was also willing to bet that he wouldn’t be too concerned if I ‘happened’ to sustain severe brain damage during the MindTrawl, many folks did.

  “Of course,” I said. “Once the Node Prime has accepted you as my consort.”

  Clete narrowed his eyes, unsuccessfully trying to hide his anger as the auto-cam continued whirring in front of him. “You’ll accompany me to the Nodery.”

  “Of course. I’ll be right alongside you.” I smiled, showing my teeth.

  Ellern dug her nails into my arm, clearly aggravated.

  I pretended to stumble, knocking heavily into her and throwing her off-balance. We’d have both gone sprawling into the dust if a couple of the guards flanking us hadn’t stepped in and steadied us.

  Some signal must have been triggered, because many Cnicans dressed up in their market finery started trickling into the square, milling around as they all fought to get to the spot they’d been assigned.

  “Smile!” boomed an aggravated Gloriosan with a voice enhancer.

  I was pleased to see that his face was beet-red and sweat was dripping off his chin. Not a surprise given it was now the height of noonblast. The heat was going to be a serious issue, out here in The Square, despite the recently fitted diffuser, as the full might of Cronos hammered down. The children and oldsters needed to be indoors, for starters.

  As frightened folks clutched family members, it was clear a number of villagers were nothing of the sort. They loomed over the rest, far too well nourished and hefty to have been brought up on a Cnican diet and workload. They elbowed and tugged at the natives, hauling them into position.

  “Right. We need to do that again!” roared the bad-tempered Uppie with the voice enhancer.

  “No, we don’t,” snapped Clete, looking hot. “We need to get this whole godding business filmed before we all become greasy spots in the dirt.” He looked at me, smiling widely and insincerely. “My dearest little dove, how I’ve longed to hold you.” As he moved towards me, he held his arms out, as if about to launch himself into the air.

  It clearly was a move designed to trigger some response, which didn’t happen.

  Clete dropped his arms and the smile as he snarled, “Right you fried-brain dust-tics, move!” He barrelled through the middle of the crowd, while his thugs slapped and shoved anyone unlucky enough to be in his way.

  The man with the voice enhancer dragged his hand through his hair, groaning, “This is going to take an eon to edit!”

  And then Clete was right by my side, stinking of cologne and sweat. “My dearest little dove, how I’ve longed to hold you,” he repeated, folding me in his reeking variweave robes, then letting me go again.

  “Given you wrote the lines, Your Lordship, could you at least say them as if you only half meant them? The great and the good of Gloriosa will be watching this. And frankly, a fair number will need convincing this is a love match.”

  “Convincing? Kyrillia looks like she’d rather rut with a sodding turd than that there wattle-faced article—”

  Clete clicked his fingers, pointing to the slab-muscled heavies either side of us. And the shooting began before Skyla Slurry had finished insulting him.


  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I dropped to the ground, hoping at least one of the shots flying around would end up in Clete. Sadly he landed in the dirt alongside me, evidently unscathed. But shouts, screams and sobbing told their own terrible tale. People were down and hurting, some maybe dead.

  I rolled over and risked raising my head to see if Seth was still shady. He was. Though I wasn’t sure how much longer that would be the case. Skyla had been standing at the back of the crowd when shot, and the roachers who’d opened fire hadn’t been fussy about taking aim. Three others lay in crumpled heaps on the ground, alongside her, their blood bright and shocking against the powdery dust coating their skin and clothes. And Seth was crawling towards the wounded, along with Onice, Beneth Healer and Idaline Ferry.

  “Are you unhurt, Your Ladyship?” shouted Master Trask in the sudden silence from the half-open Nodery.

  “For now,” I answered.

  “Just to be clear. If any of you apes shoot her, all the Nodes on the planet will go feral because no one else has the Codes. If you want to trudge back to Gloriosa on foot – you won’t be flying – you’ll be existing with no bots, no running water, no heating, no transport, no energy to cook with.” I was impressed how his reedy voice rose over the groans of the wounded, as he continued, “And staying here won’t be an option. There’ll be no heat diffusers or cooling systems in the houses so you’ll quickly die of heat exhaustion if dehydration doesn’t get you first. No water pumps or purification, either. And no energy to keep out the creatures who’ll likely overrun the village the minute they realise the fencing isn’t electrified.”

  There was a mutter from a few the soldiers scattered across The Square. Probably the ones who’d stood shoulder to shoulder with us when fighting the nemmets, I realised.

  “That straightline?” yelled a male Gloriosan voice.

  “Hell, yeah,” shouted Captain Crayler. “So any of you boys who crossed to the dark side for the sake of a few lousy swaps want to reconsider, I’m up for overlooking your previous shoddiness.”

  “Thought you was on the side of Gator and his pack,” called someone else.

  “Nah. Just acted like it to flush out those fickle-fingered traitors who reckoned they could cross over to the other side and it wouldn’t matter because we’re stuck in this stinking armpit of the planet.”

  “Silence!” bawled Clete, so loudly it made me jump.

  There was still a cacophony of groans and howls.

  “I said silence!”

  “That’s the wounded your people shot,” I called. “Don’t reckon they’re in a place to be listening to you, right now.”

  “Then kill them!” howled Clete.

  “No!” The nail file slipped into my hand and I rolled over twice, ending up half across Clete’s body, raising my arm to stab him in the eye with it, when the unmistakeable outline of a gun barrel jabbed me in the back of the head, below my sunscreen.

  “And just so’s you know, I hate bots and all the junk we’ve cluttered ourselves up with. If I had my way, we’d till the earth the honest way and raise our own food, or starve if we couldn’t. You die, this civilisation will burst like a rotten apple. But a new dawn of better, stronger, fitter people would rise from the decay, free from your godding Nodes.”

  “Don’t you dare!” screamed Clete. “Just take that knife, or whatever it is from her.”

  But the barrel didn’t move from the back of my neck, and neither did the guard take the nail file out of my hand.

  I’m betting he isn’t all that fond of the Bridgedeckers, either. Though, for once, I kept my thoughts tucked behind my teeth. Now wasn’t the time to make him angry. I was very relieved to hear the wounded were still calling for help, which meant that Clete’s order hadn’t been obeyed.

  Is that because a number of his followers have decided to join Captain Crayler? Or there are just a few brave souls holding off Clete’s overwhelming force and daring them to shoot? I didn’t know.

  “May I check Her Ladyship for any injuries?” called Ellern.

  The barrel jabbed me painfully. “You hurt?”

  “Other than the roaching gun you keep bashing me with, no.”

  “There. You heard her – take a long walk in the noonblast,” said the guard with the gun at my head.

  And that’s an Acinos Province saying, though he’s got a Gloriosan accent. So where has he come from? And where has he got such a tilted view of things? We don’t belong on this world where the wildlife would overwhelm us without the advantage of our technology and knowledge. How come he doesn’t know this?

  “Men! I order you to attack,” shouted Clete.

  “Anyone start shooting, I’ll stab you in the eye if it’s the last thing I ever do,” I yelled, mantivore fury coursing through me at the roacher’s willingness to butcher innocent people, because his scuzzy plans got hoed flat.

  “Belay that last command of mine!” bleated Clete.

  It was a relief when no one started shooting. The noonblast beat down, burning any uncovered skin. By rights, everyone should now be sheltering indoors, sleeping through the worst of the heat. My sunscreen was still protecting my face and head, but my hands were bare, because if I covered them, I couldn’t guarantee that I’d be able to plunge the file into Clete’s eye the minute I got the opportunity.

  Cub! I have taken the head of your mother’s slayer, hooted Vrox, crashing through my head with the force of a migraine. Burch’s frozen expression jolts about, his head impaled upon one of Vrox’s claws… his blood is spattered across the floor and drips off Vrox’s scarred belly scales in rivulets…

  I returned to my own body as the roaching guard plucked the file from my nerveless hand. “Decadent trash, the lot of you,” he said. “Trueborn humanity wouldn’t be having fits in the middle of a battleground.”

  “If she hadn’t tranced off in the middle of that attack last night, none of us would be here. Including you, you stupid sack of shit!” shouted someone off to my right.

  “And that’s another thing,” he said, jabbing the barrel against my neck, again. “I’m mighty sick of the hem-hugging going on around here. Just cos she’s a Bridgedecker—”

  “No, I’m not,” I said. “Look around you. This is where I was born and raised. I hate a whole lot of what Gloriosa stands for, especially that folks born out here get a harder, shorter life than those born in a different part of the planet. It’s plain wrong and I’m aiming to fix it.”

  “Words are cheap when you’re spewing them to save your sorry hide,” he snarled, shoving that gun once more in the base of my skull, which was now thudding with vicious intensity thanks to Vrox’s intervention.

  Time wore on. Lying far too close to Clete, I cushioned my head with the hood on my robe. No way was I risking my bare head on Arcadian soil. Closing my eyes, I chose to listen to the high whine of cooked air, instead of the cries and sobs of the injured and suffering I couldn’t help. My variweave robe had a coolant layer fitted in the lining, the snag being that it didn’t work when lying on it. Leastways it was thick enough to provide protection from the searing sun, though I was being slowly cooked, like everyone else out here. Sweat trickled across my back, under my arms, through my scalp and between my legs. Powder-fine dust coated my face and for once, I was glad of my goggles as Clete fretted and grumbled about the glare and grit hurting his eyes.

  I tried not thinking about how thirsty I was.

  One by one, crying children fell silent, too slagged by the heat to continue.

  I licked cracked lips with a swollen, dry tongue. “Please… let the oldsters and women with children retreat to the Meeting House. It’s cool in there.”

  “Seal it shut, you!” croaked the guard, sounding as if he’d been gargling with sand, and whose jab at my neck was feebler than it had been. “In fact, that’s a stinging notion. On your feet!” He hauled me to my knees.

  I lolled against his legs, limper than day-old lettuce. You want to be in the cool of the Meeting House
, you’re gonna have to carry me there…

  “Get up, you over-privileged gob of roachdirt!” He aimed a wobbly kick at my head, and missed as I lunged sideways. He staggered, on the verge of falling. Several shots rang out and he toppled into the dust between me and Clete, his weapon falling right by Clete’s arm.

  Clete snatched it up, his face lit by a ghastly grin. He trained it on me. “My, how that roaching feeb-brain liked to talk. On and on. But I got to thinking while lying here, being boiled alive. He’s right. You die and the whole of civilisation goes down with you.”

  I stared back at him. No, it doesn’t. Because I don’t have the Codes. Vrox is the one who holds the future of humanity within his claws.

  Clete primed the weapon, pointing it at my head. “It’s all gone to shit. Just because you never did as you were told! Well, if I can’t have control, no one will. I’ll be remembered as the one who took it all apart, if there’s anyone left to make a record of such things, that is.”

  I kept still. So very, very still. Because just out of the corner of my eye – I couldn’t quite believe that no one else was seeing it… but clearly they weren’t—

  “Why aren’t you crying and begging for your life? The lives of all your friends? The life of—” Clete suddenly broke off, and swung the gun around towards where Seth was sitting in the open, using his body to create shade for a couple of panting children.

  “Nooo!” If only I’d been a couple of steps closer to him! I’d eased back to give them plenty of space. But they, too, weren’t close enough. I launched myself at him, now desperate to stop him. And got there not more than a couple of heartbeats after he’d fired and Seth went down in a spray of blood.

  I turned to Clete, still holding the gun, smiling and bringing it up—

  “No!” I snarled at Vrox, approaching in stealth mode, all set to disembowel the roacher. “Mine!” MIIINE! Afire with fury and grief, I wrenched the gun from his grip and holding it by the stock, I swung it around so the hot barrel caught him squarely across the face. He howled, putting his hand up to his face, still not properly afraid.