by Eric Brown
“I know where the clearing is that borders the zone,” Akio said. “Lincoln allowed me to accompany Oni that far. We’ll land there, and then make our way through the jungle. Apparently there are tracks leading into the zones.”
“And how extensive are the zones?”
Akio shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“So the chances of finding Maatje and Hovarth . . .”
“There will be Vhey, observing us.”
“And do you think they’ll simply allow us to transgress—?”
“I think, when I ask to be taken to Oni, they will agree. The Vhey are curious, and trusting, and have no reason to suspect us of anything untoward.”
“But . . . can we trust them, Akio?”
The young man shrugged. “They are not hostile, merely enigmatic. And they have shown no desire to take us by force before. People like Oni have gone to them voluntarily.”
Hendrick nodded, tracing the line of Mercury’s jaw. He checked her pulse again. Her breathing was regular; she was sleeping off the blitz of the neural jolt, and it was best to let her rest.
But why, he asked himself, had Maatje and Hovarth taken Sam in her suspension pod into the sacred zone? Having given up on any conventional human cure for Sam’s condition, were they resorting to yet another irrational alien ‘cure’? Did they hope that Samantha, though technically dead, might become Exalted?
But what exactly was this Exalted state of which Pascal, and Akio, had spoken?
He wanted nothing more than to reach the sacred zone, yet at the same time he was beset by apprehension.
He laid his head back on the rest and, to the lulling throb of the turbos, slept.
“Matt.”
He heard Mercury’s voice and sat up.
She was sitting sideways on the back seat, smiling at him. Behind her, the huge sun was rising over the mountainous horizon. In the bright dawn light, he saw the welt that blazed on the side of her face and neck where the pulser beam had grazed her.
“Mercury . . . ?”
“I’m okay,” she said. “It’s sore, but I’ll live. Well done, you two, in getting us away from there. The last I remember is getting hit.”
He kissed her hand. “We’re heading for a sacred . . .”
She indicated the obscured symbol on her cheek and whispered, “I know.”
Akio smiled over his shoulder. “And don’t worry, Mercury, about Edward Lincoln or the others following us. There are no roads leading this far north, and Matt disabled the only other flier.”
“Well done, you two, again. What would I do without you?”
Hendrick smiled. “You’d be leading a quiet life on Earth, and not haring round the Expansion on a wild goose chase.”
Mercury reached out and took his hand. “We’ll get her, Matt. We’ll find out what all this Exalted malarkey is all about, and this pahn-malahn, and apprehend them before . . .”
He said, “They have a day on us. I hope we haven’t left it too late.”
Akio called out, “Look, down there.”
Directly below the flier, Hendrick made out a shimmering blue lake and beside it, rising up the slope towards the jungle, a clearing similar to the one they had left; the only difference was that this one was free of any sign of human habitation.
“This is where we landed last year,” Akio said, “and I said goodbye to Oni. This is where she joined the Vhey and was taken into the jungle.”
NINE
AKIO CLIMBED FROM THE FLIER AND WALKED UP THE hillside. He paused and stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the jungle. Beyond, Bellatrix rose, a fiery arc spanning a quarter of the horizon.
Mercury murmured to Hendrick, “You still have the pulser?”
He nodded. “You want it?”
“No, it’s okay. But keep it handy.”
“You don’t trust the Vhey?”
“For all that Akio claimed they’re not hostile, I think it’d be wise to be on our guard.” She looked at him. “Don’t worry, Matt. I’m sure it’ll be okay.”
“I wish I shared your confidence. I don’t trust Maatje, and as for Hovarth and all this Exalted business . . .”
“I have a good feeling about this. For all Maatje’s flakiness, she has Sam’s best interests at heart. She wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”
She was just spinning words again, Hendrick thought. Trying to make him feel okay. He hoped she wasn’t reading, or she’d be aware of his annoyance. But that was the thing about his relationship with Mercury: the next time she was reading, she’d read his memory of this moment, and she’d forgive him.
He wondered if this was why he loved the woman so much: because she could look into his head, see all his weaknesses and foibles, and still love him.
“Come on,” she said, taking his hand and pulling him up the incline.
They joined Akio, and he quickly cuffed tears from his cheeks. “I’m sorry. This is where I stood as the Vhey led Oni into the jungle.”
Hendrick put an arm around the young man’s shoulders. “It’s okay,” he said. “I know how you feel.”
Akio blinked. “You do?”
“Five years ago, someone I loved was taken. That’s why I’m here.”
He told the young man about Samantha, her illness, her death, and her suspension. And then how his wife and Hovarth had taken Sam in the pod—and how for the past five years he’d tracked them back and forth across the Expansion.
“And now,” he said, taking a deep breath and gazing into the jungle, “I feel as though it’s coming to an end.”
Akio said softly, “I hope you’re right, Matt.”
Mercury cocked her head. At first he thought she was reading again, but then she said, “Listen, you two. The silence . . . the absolute silence!”
Hendrick became aware of the absence of sound only when she pointed it out. They were thousands of kilometres from the nearest human being, standing on a remote hillside on a strange alien world, surrounded by silence but for the sound of their own breathing. He shivered, something like dread creeping over him.
“We’re being watched,” Akio said. “Look . . .”
Hendrick followed the direction of his pointing arm.
A lone Vhey was hanging from the upper branches of a spiny tree, staring at them. And then he saw another, lower down, and another and another. Suddenly he was aware of a gallery of the tiny aliens ranged among the trees before him, perhaps two dozen individuals. Despite himself, Hendrick felt again the creeping sense of unease at the proximity of the extraterrestrials.
Mercury said, “I think we should approach them.”
Hendrick looked at her and mimed, “You reading?”
She nodded. “Come on.”
Three abreast, they made their way up the hillside towards the tree line, then stopped and looked up at the closest, crimson Vhey.
It clung to a spine, for all the world like a giant Terran tree frog; its arms and legs were folded, so their disproportion to its truncated torso was not apparent. Only its huge gelid black eyes and inverted V-shaped mouth seemed utterly alien.
Hendrick glanced at Mercury. “Get anything?”
“Only one God Almighty headache. I . . . It’s like trying to make sense of alien music.”
Akio pointed to a gap in the foliage before them. “That’s the path Oni and the Vhey took.”
“Should we . . . ?” Hendrick began, at once eager to enter the jungle and at the same time reluctant.
Mercury turned suddenly, startling him. A Vhey had emerged from the jungle and stood upright, staring at them. Its eyes nictitated slowly from side to side.
Mercury pulled a pained face as she attempted to read the alien’s mind.
Akio stepped towards the alien. “You took my sister, Oni.”
The Vhey stared at him, blinked, said nothing. The silence stretched.
Akio licked his lips and went on, “Last year, you took Oni. Then yesterday, three others.”
The alien spoke, startl
ing Hendrick, “Oni . . . Hovarth . . . Maatje . . . Samantha.”
Mercury murmured, “I can make out faint images, Matt—its memory of the four.”
“Yes . . .” Akio stepped forward in his eagerness, reached out an arm. “Yes, Oni! Is she . . . Is Oni alive?”
The alien remained absolutely still, and silent, as if processing the question. Then: “Alive?”
Akio almost sobbed. “Is my sister alive?”
After another interminable silence, the alien spoke. “Oni . . . she is living.”
Akio gasped and turned a joyous, tear-stained face towards Hendrick and Mercury. “She’s alive!”
Hendrick said, “And Maatje, Hovarth, and Samantha?”
“They live,” said the alien.
Mercury said, “Will you take us to them?” Her head was turned to one side, as if by averting her face from the creature she might avoid the pain.
“What are you reading?” Hendrick whispered.
“Images, nothing more . . . fleeting, ghostlike. The creature took Oni into the jungle . . .”
Hendrick sensed a ‘but’ coming, and glanced at Akio. He had stepped forward again, more intent on the Vhey than on Mercury.
“What?” Hendrick asked her.
“But . . . But they did something to her,” she whispered. “I can’t tell what. I just sense their overwhelming joy.”
“Did something?” Hendrick stared at her, appalled. “And Sam?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think this Vhey was responsible for taking Sam and the others.”
Suddenly, without another word, the alien turned and slipped into the jungle.
Akio followed without a second thought. Hendrick glanced at Mercury, who nodded. He gave chase and caught up with the young man as he ducked under a nodding frond, racing along what looked like an animal-run through the undergrowth.
Despite the fact that they were out of the glare of the sun, the heat—or rather the humidity—increased. It was as if the alien growths that crowded in on every side exhaled a collective, fetid breath. Hendrick found himself gagging for air, and when he did manage to pull in a lung-full of oxygen, he almost gagged at its putrid quality.
From behind him, Mercury called out, “Look at the thorn trees, Matt, and those pink tongue-like things . . .”
He did so, and wished he hadn’t. Every other tree they passed bore a vicious defence of spines, and dozens of hapless animals had impaled themselves on the metre-long barbs, their bodies in various stages of decomposition. The plants that resembled two-metre high tongues, thrusting nacreous and slimy from the soil, had yet more victims adhered to their laryngeal lengths, lizard-like creatures and furred rodents, their remains pullulating with the Beltranean equivalent of maggots. Hendrick gagged and averted his gaze.
He looked beyond Akio and caught fleeting glimpses of the alien, bouncing along on its elongated legs, its crimson skin just another flash of colour in the polychromatic jungle.
They hurried on for over an hour, the incline becoming ever steeper, so that added to the difficulty of breathing was the hardship of having to climb an increasingly punishing gradient. The trek would have been arduous enough on the flat; Hendrick felt his lungs protest in pain, his legs on the verge of giving way.
And then, just as he was about to call out to Akio to stop so that he could rest, they burst into a sunlit clearing. Hendrick came to a sudden, thankful halt, taking deep breaths of much fresher air and blinking in the sunlight.
Mercury came to his side and he held her as if for support. She too was breathing hard, her face drenched in sweat.
“Oh, no . . .” she said, staring ahead.
The alien had halted in the centre of the clearing, gazing up the gradient to a giant thorn tree that grew in isolation fifty metres away. Hendrick had the impression that it occupied some special pride of place, a kind of altarpiece in nature’s alien cathedral.
As he stared, he saw the reason for Mercury’s exclamation.
On this thorn tree there was only one victim, but it was far larger than any of the other remains he had seen so far.
Akio moved forward slowly, too stunned to give voice to his horror.
The human skeleton, the bones bleached white by the sun, hung spread-eagled on an array of vicious spikes. Nature had worked to remove every shred of flesh from the bones, and only threads of ragged garments remained. Its skull sat, lopsided, and stared at them with massive orbits.
Akio approached the tree and fell to his knees before the skeleton. He hung his head and wept.
Hendrick and Mercury moved to his side. Hendrick was about to ask if he was sure the remains were Oni’s, but Mercury stopped him with a gesture, pointing to a thin golden chain hanging on the skeleton’s right wrist.
Hendrick could only imagine that her death would have been appallingly slow and painful, as the metre-long spines pierced her arms, legs, and torso. And something else, he saw, connected the remains to the tree: snaking from the green trunk was a withered, leathery tentacle, like an umbilical cord, which entered the base of the skull and grew around the upper vertebrae.
He looked at Mercury, as if for some explanation, but she could only shake her head.
Akio turned and stared at the Vhey, who stood a few metres to their right, watching them dispassionately with its huge black eyes.
“But you said she was alive!” Akio cried.
The alien blinked at him, then spread its hands to take in the surrounding jungle. “Oni is living . . .” it said.
Akio wailed.
Hendrick asked Mercury, “What does it mean?”
She shook her head. She was staring at the Vhey, her expression pained. Hendrick placed a hand on Akio’s arm.
Mercury said in a small voice, “The Vhey truly believe that Oni lives. They think she is Exalted—but that is only the human word for the state they believe she occupies.”
“The state?” Hendrick said.
“They believe she is one with the universe now.”
Akio wept, pointing at the skeleton of his sister. “But she’s dead!”
He pulled away from Hendrick and ran at the alien. Hendrick was too slow to stop him, not that the Vhey required his intervention. Before Akio could attack, the Vhey took three nimble steps backwards and flowed up the thorn tree, using the spines as rungs, then hung metres from the ground and stared down at its would-be assailant.
Mercury moved to Akio and held him. “Akio, I know it’s no consolation, but this is what Oni wanted.”
“But she’s dead!” the young man cried.
“She believed that she would ascend, become one—become Exalted. And . . .” she went on, “I don’t believe she was in pain.”
His face contorted with grief, Akio pointed to the barbarous thorns. “But . . .”
“No . . . I think this happened later. First . . .” She indicated the withered umbilical connecting the skull to the tree. “First, the cord found her, anaesthetised her.”
Akio drew a sob. “You think so? Do you really think . . . ?”
“I’m sure,” she said.
Hendrick stared from Mercury to the flensed skeleton, wondering if she really knew this or was concocting a fantasy to ease the young man’s grief.
The alien slipped bonelessly from the tree and stood before them, blinking.
Hendrick faced the Vhey and found his voice. “Hovarth, Maatje, and . . . ?” He could not bring himself to say his daughter’s name.
The alien said, “They live.”
Hendrick’s voice caught on a sob. He pointed to the skewered skeleton. “Like this?”
The alien blinked at him, then set off on its long, giving legs. “Come,” it said, moving beyond the thorn tree and into the jungle.
They followed.
TEN
HENDRICK HAD NO IDEA HOW LONG THEY CHASED the alien through the dappled vegetation.
They passed a dozen examples of smaller thorn trees and tongue plants, all adorned with putresce
nt carrion. It was as if nature were taunting him, goading his fears. He knew, as he ran to keep up
with the Vhey, what he would find at journey’s end. Maatje had achieved what she had set out all those years ago to accomplish: she had finally found a belief system which, she hoped, would save her daughter and also spurn his rationalism. He cursed her as he ran, desperate to reach Maatje and his daughter but knowing that he would be too late.
Ahead, the sunlight brightened; had they been careering through the jungle for an hour, or just ten minutes? It felt like the former; his limbs were exhausted, his lungs tight with pain.
They came to a clearing, identical to the last. Ahead, at the top of the incline, stood another unholy thorn tree. Hendrick stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the growth a hundred metres away. Mercury halted beside him. Akio, behind them, moaned aloud at a sight which could only remind him of the trial his sister had undergone.
The body of Edmund Hovarth hung on the thorn tree, his torso, arms, and legs run through by twenty bloody barbs—a latter-day Saint Sebastian martyred in futile self-sacrifice to some accursed alien ethos.
Hendrick stared around the clearing in desperation, but there was no sign of Maatje or the suspension pod.
Mercury took his arm, gasping, “But he’s alive, Matt! Hovarth is alive!”
“No . . .” How could someone so lacerated, his every vital organ pierced by a metre-long thorn, possibly still survive?
Hendrick stepped forward and stared in horror at the bloodied body.
Then, in a gesture which compounded the macabre vision, Hovarth hung back his head and laughed, rivulets of blood flowing down his body and coagulating in the soil at his feet.
“Oh, the joy, Hendrick! The euphoria!” He stared at them with wide, manic eyes. “The Vhey promised Exaltation, and they did not lie! I am one, Exalted!”
“Look . . .” Akio said, pointing, and Hendrick saw the thick, red, pulsing umbilical that emerged from the trunk of the tree and entered Hovarth’s flesh at the base of his skull.
Mercury swayed on her feet, moaning. “He . . . he really believes, Matt. He is ecstatic. Some drug, some alien high sluicing through his system . . .”